The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1957
Running Time	79:47
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Terence Fisher
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Peter Cushing Hazel Court Robert Urquhart Christopher Lee
Case	Gatefold
RPI	Box	Music	James Bernard

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Swedish Danish Norwegian Greek Turkish Arabic English for the Hearing Impaired German for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    In 1949, a new production house came into being in England. It would build its reputation on quality budget films with a particular focus on the Horror genre. Still in existence today, it has been responsible for producing over two hundred films and television programs. Amongst these are some of my personal favourites, especially the early Quartermass films and in particular Quartermass And The Pit. They are also responsible for one of the most unusual horror combinations: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires where Peter Cushing's character is hunting vampires (of course) in China and is ably assisted in this by a group of Kung Fu experts.

    In 1957 they produced what I believe was their first Frankenstein film, The Curse Of Frankenstein, with Peter Cushing playing Baron Victor Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as the creature. In this version of the story we focus on the character of Frankenstein with the monster almost taking a back seat. He is a truly driven man that will stop at nothing to achieve his goals, including murder. The creature does not engender the pathos that some other versions of the story sometimes do - he is a damaged and dangerous creature from start to finish. The traditional scene showing the creature's human side is completely missing.

    This is not to say that this is not an excellent interpretation of the story, simply a bit different from the others. The sets are fantastic with a real gothic feel to the Baron's residence. The monster looks good for the 50s and is more seriously done than some versions, particularly those with bolts in their necks. We have the usual mad scientists lab with flashing lights, test tubes and lots of air lines for bubbles. Dry ice is also in regular use.

    As a foil to the horror in the film there is also some sexuality supplied by Hazel Court as Elizabeth. Her costumes are very regal and sensuous with wide skirts and low cut tops. Robert Urquhart plays Paul Krempe, initially the young Frankenstein's tutor and later his assistant. He does not approve of the experiments that Frankenstein is performing and tries to stop them from going forward.

    This is the first of three discs that make up the new box set Hammer Horror Collection. In this set we have this film along with Horror Of Dracula and The Mummy, all late fifties Hammer Horror productions.

Video

    The film master used for this transfer is nothing short of miraculous and is in near-perfect condition. I have given films of far less age than this allowances for their age - this film requires no allowance at all. As far as film artefacts are concerned this film could have been made yesterday.

    There is, however, a strange artefact during the scene changes. This film uses fades to move from one scene to another. While the fade is progressing, the image and colours are slightly brighter than normal. When the transition completes, the brightness and colour saturation drop slightly. This is a little distracting. I must assume that this is in the source material as I cannot think of a mechanism where MPEG processing could introduce such an artefact. An example of this is the red liquid in the beaker on the bench in the lab at 9:19.

    The film is presented at 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The only real problem with this transfer is related to the sharpness. In general, the image is only reasonably sharp with some scenes better than others. I suspect that the low bit rate and higher-than-normal compression used in this transfer has had an effect on the sharpness, or the sharpness has been reduced via a filter to prevent pixelization. On the other hand, the original image may be to blame - it is difficult to judge with only the final transfer being available for viewing. Moving objects or backgrounds during pans are even less sharp. Black levels are good as is the shadow detail. There is only the most minuscule amount of low level noise, only visible in some scenes with a mid grey background.

    Colours are very good with no noise present at all. Skins tones are good for most of the film though there is the occasional scene where they appear a little washed out.

    Other than the effect on the sharpness there are no real visible MPEG artefacts. With the low bitrate I distrusted my initial impressions and examined many scenes very closely. The only problem I could find was some very minor posterization in the background which is nearly invisible. An example is the grey bricks in the background at 21:23. The film master as mentioned is in near-perfect condition with almost invisible grain and no other film artefacts.

    The subtitles are easy to read and reasonably accurate to the dialogue.

    This is a single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are three soundtracks on this disc, all Dolby Digital 1.0. The first and default is English, with German and French the other two. I found the soundtrack a little bright and thin and as a personal preference prefer mono sound tracks in Dolby Digital 2.0, although I understand the wish to avoid the Hass effect with the same signal coming from two speakers.

    Dialogue quality is excellent as is the audio sync.

    The music is wonderfully creepy and suits the film very well.

    There is no surround nor subwoofer activity.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (2:16)

    Presented at 1.33:1 and 16x9 enhanced. The image is mail-slotted into the centre of the screen and accompanied by a Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack. The quality is not quite the same as the main feature with some grain visible and some brightness strobing present. It is the trailer you would expect from this era with the over-the-top voice-over and the creepy lettering appearing between scenes.

Cast and Crew

    A single page simply listing the cast and crew against a black and white image from the movie.

   While this box set has been released in the US, information on this release is extremely hard to come by. This film itself was also released separately from the set. That single release and the disc included in this set appear to be identical in content. Comparing reviews of the transfers of the single disc release would appear to be very similar, though the R1 might be a tad sharper overall, although I have not seen the R1 myself and cannot confirm this.

    I will call this an R4 winner unless further information comes to light as I really don't like NTSC 3:2 pulldown.

    I believe this to be one of the better versions of Frankenstein. A great cast has come together to tell the story in a character-driven way and it is truly creepy in parts. It is a great first film as part of this box set.

    The video is a little soft.

    The audio is a bit thin.

    Extras are a bit thin too.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall