Creature Double Feature 6: FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN (Hammer/20th Century-Fox 1967)/FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (Hammer/Warner Bros 1969)

Hammer Horrors were a staple of Boston’s late, lamented “Creature Double Feature” (WLVI-TV 56), so today let’s take a look at a demonic duo of Frankenstein fright films starring the immortal Peter Cushing in his signature role as the villainous Baron Frankenstein.

FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN was the fourth in Hammer’s Frankenstein series, made three years after EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN. The Baron is back (after having apparently been blown to smithereens last time around), this time tampering with immortal souls rather than mere brain transplants. The movie features some ahead-of-its-time gender-bending as well, with the soul of an unjustly executed man transmogrified into the body of his freshly dead (via suicide) girlfriend, now out for vengeance!

Young Hans (Robert Morris), who watched his father guillotined as a child, grows up to work for muddle-headed alcoholic Dr. Hertz (Thorley Walters , in an amusing performance), who revives the cryogenically frozen Baron Frankenstein. The Baron has changed tactics, and is now interested in trapping souls before they leave the body, to be transplanted in new hosts. Hans is dating the crippled and disfigured Christina (Susan Denberg), daughter of the local innkeeper. A trio of rich, arrogant young pricks harass the pathetic Christina, and Hans defends her honor, until finally restrained by Daddy Innkeeper. The rash Hans demands he be let go, threatening his prospective father-in-law, who isn’t very fond of Hans anyway.

The three jerks break into the inn after hours for some more drinking, and wind up beating the innkeeper to death. Hans is arrested for the murder, but refuses to provide an alibi (he was having a go at Christina at the time). He’s   tried, convicted, and guillotined (like father, like son!), and the distraught Christina kills herself by jumping off a bridge. The Baron takes all this as an opportunity to prove his theories, and transmits Hans’s soul into Christina’s body, then performs surgery to fix her deformities. The now beautiful Christina has no memory of her past life, until the sight of the guillotine triggers her (his?) mind, and she (he?) sets out for revenge on the three young wastrels…

The far-fetched but clever script by John Elder (a pseudonym for Anthony Hinds) is intelligently directed by Hammer’s workhorse Terence Fisher, who began the series with CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and ended it with 1974’s FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL. Cushing by now had the imperious, cocky Baron down pat, still retaining his enthusiasm for the part. Susan Denberg impresses as Christina, making a remarkable transformation from the shy, deformed barmaid to cold-blooded killer. The former model, who was a Playboy centerfold in August 1966, had a brief acting career that included the interesting but flawed AN AMERICAN DREAM and an episode of STAR TREK as one of “Mudd’s Women”. FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN is by far her biggest (and best) role, though her thick Austrian accent was dubbed by Nikki Van der Zyl, who performed the same task for Ursula Andress in DR. NO and Claudine Auger in THUNDERBALL .

Two years later, the Baron was at it again in FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, a gruesome little tale filled with sex and violence. Fisher again directs and Cushing stars, this time staying at a rooming house run by the fetching Anna (Veronica Carlson ). Anna’s fiancé Karl (a pre-stardom Simon Ward) works as an intern at the local insane asylum. Frankenstein’s former colleague Dr. Brandt is locked up there, and the Baron needs to unlock his mind to discover his secret for freezing brains before death sets in (or something like that). Frankenstein finds out Karl’s been selling the asylum’s drugs on the side to help pay for Anna’s mum’s residence there, and the cagey Baron blackmails the young man into helping him kidnap Brandt (the randy Baron also helps himself to Anna, violently raping her when Karl’s away).

The duo abscond with Brandt, who winds up suffering a heart attack, so Frankenstein and Karl abduct asylum director Prof. Richter (Freddie Jones, FIREFOX) and transplant Brandt’s brain into his body. Brandt’s wife (Maxine Audley, PEEPING TOM ) recognizes Frankenstein on the street, and he takes her to see her husband wrapped in bandages (not realizing he’s in Richter’s body now). Brandt awakens later, discovers what horror he’s been put through, and seeks revenge, resulting in a fiery finale ripped straight from a Corman/Poe film!

Cushing is a charmingly chilling Baron in this one, a thoroughly unlikable scoundrel who’s introduced in a pre-credits scene wearing a Michael Myers-looking mask and lopping off a man’s head with a scythe! There are plenty of good frights to be had, including the scene where Brandt’s dead body pops up from the garden when a water main bursts. Thorley Walters once again adds comic relief as an inspector on the wily Baron’s trail. FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED is my personal favorite of the Hammer Frankensteins, but both of these films are worthy for fans of Hammer Horrors. In fact, together they make a perfect Creature Double Feature!