Chris Fluffy

The DD release is cut. The first pressing was missing the bit where Frankenstein clamps an artery with his teeth as well as other bits of gore. The second pressing restored the artery scene but was still missing the other gore.

The most complete version currently available is the German Anolis disc. There is a drop in quality during the restored cuts (as if the footage was taken from a video copy) but the image is more than acceptable. All the other material is identical to the DD disc -- same source print.

There is supposedly a more complete Japanese laserdisc version but this has less than 1 second of gore (20 or frames) more than the Anolis.

Hope this helps.

Dr. Schreck

I happen to like the movie a lot, despite the terrible monster make-up. Both Cushing and Fisher were against it, in fact. But I still think it's a fitting end to the series - Frankenstein is completely mad, by now, a prisoner of his failures ... and he not only arranged with that, but accepted it. By then, he really believes he's God ("Creator of Men ..."). In the end, he's a driveling madman, like the other inmates of the asylum.

I'm quite glad I was involved in the German DVD, in fact, not only by supporting stills and stuff and writing the booklet, but also by working on the German dialogue script (trying to make it sound like the good ol' days - the movie was never shown here and had to be dubbed) and being involved in getting the German actors for the dubbing. We managed to get Friedrich Schoenfelder, who was Cushing's German voice in many movies from 1963 on. That made me quite happy, I have to confess. =)

"I swore then that they would never be rid of me!"

m35541

The extra gore is a slight extension of the shot of the asylum director with the gory throat wound - I have the Dutch VHS and, yes, this shot is about 1s longer allowing you to see more clearly blood pumping out.

It is not clear to me whether the climax is now uncut although the Anolis version of the scene is the same as the Dutch VHS and therefore most complete version available - more complete than the DD version and the US version certainly. Kinsey's book shows two stills of the monster's severed hand - one being held by the woman who feeds bits of the creature to her doll (although this looks a little like a publicity shot) and another of the hand being stomped into the ground. Kinsey also quotes BBFC correspondence asking for shots of the hand to be removed. The severed hand can't be seen at all in the actual film.

Lord Brett

I take it, then, that the German edition has an English dialogue option. If it's still available this sounds well worth picking up.

Dr. Schreck

Yes, of course. But German DVDs of British movies mostly have. ;)

"I swore then that they would never be rid of me!"

Lord Brett

Is this the one?

Frankensteins Höllenmonster (Hammer-Edition): Amazon.de: Peter Cushing, Shane Briant, Madeline Smith, Terence Fisher: DVD & Blu-ray

If so it's a bit expensive for me at the moment at 46 Euros.

Dr. Schreck

That's the one, yeah. It is out of print for some time now, so I guess that's the reason for it being that expensive atm, especially as it is the most complete edition available world-wide.

"I swore then that they would never be rid of me!"

cesare

Having compared the UK, US and German DVDs ... The Anolis and the (corrected) DD version appear identical. Bizarrely, however, the Paramount (US) one, despite cutting out all sorts of other things (notably, of course, the famous artery-clamping shot), actually holds the 'throat-stabbing of asylum director' close-up fractionally longer than the other ones; it also looks redder and gloppier. Presumably this corresponds to the Japanese version. And yet the rest of the American disc is a travesty. Go figure.

Chris Fluffy

Dr. Schreck -- thanks for your work on the Frankenstein DVD, I think the team did a great job and I even enjoyed the Holtsen Pils ad hidden feature. Excellent stuff.

Cesare -- there ARE definite differences between the second issue DD video disc and the Anolis version. I can't quite remember where the cuts are but I had the first DD disc (which also was missing the data "flag" to automatically set the TV to widescreen), I returned it for the second press. When I later bought the Anolis disc, I compared it to the reissued DD video disc and found the differences in no time at all. As I say, can't quite remember where they are -- I'll have to take a look sometime.

I have to say, I enjoy this film a great deal, but I say that as someone who first saw Hammer, as a child, in the late 60s/early 70s on UK TV, by which time the company was virtually finished. So when I first saw Monster From Hell, it was years later (late 70s/early 80s) and I was already a fan of the whole Hammer genre. So my appreciation of the movie was inevitably coloured and can not compare with the contemporaneous assessment of an adult movie goer who saw it in the cinema in 1974 when so much else was going on in the horror genre. I love this movie almost (in a sense) as another episode of a TV series, but I can readily accept that 1970s audiences may have regarded it as the tired death rattle of a dinosaur.

The point made elsewhere on this forum about Texas Chainsaw Massacre not being relevant due to lack of UK nationwide certification is a red herring. TCM made a HUGE splash on the UK contemporary landscape when it arrived (easily as much as Jaws). All the tabloids were reporting on this film that was so SHOCKING, so AWFUL that it must be banned. Generating the kind of publicity Hammer would have died for and having pretty much the same effect as the negative tabloid coverage that later sent the Sex Pistols to number one in the charts. Every horror fan knew about TCM and was desperate to see it. Likewise, some councils used their local powers to ignore the BBFC and to show the movie. Pirate VHS copies were everywhere by the mid 70s (even my father-in-law had one and he has no interest in horror at all). And there was plenty of coverage in UK horror magazines. So whether one had seen the film or not, it clearly had an impact on the genre and became (if only for journalists) a clear reference point for the dismissal of Hammer's cosy, almost fairytale, format.

Dr Amicus

I was aware the GLC showed it with a GLC 18/X (I forget what they called it), I couldn't say for other councils. Perhaps someone has figures?

However, the point remains that it didn't get a nationwide release - it would not have been a DIRECT competitor to Monster from Hell or To the Devil. I don't know how the Frankenstein film did in the UK (anyone?), but as I said before To the Devil did quite well here. The point I was trying to make was that it was EASIER to see them at the cinema FOR MOST PEOPLE. Horror fans may have been desperate to see TCM, but how many cinema goers would have decided NOT to go to a Hammer film because TCM was (reputedly) more horrifying even though the option to see it was not available? I can quite easily imagine many people going to see the second best option as there was no other choice (apart from all the other low budget Brit horror films flooding the market...)

Outside the UK, absolutely - the cutting back of censorship restrictions and the emergence of a new, gorier, low-budget horror genre from the US (and later Italy amongst others) made the Hammers look old fashioned (although, the Hammers probably had more blood the TCM...). Combined with the flash of big budget horrors such as Exorcist or Omen (which of course were distributed widely in the UK), and Hammer was in a bind either way.

Chris Fluffy

All the information I have suggests Monster From Hell performed modest to poor at box office. However, I wasn't saying that people were standing outside cinemas deciding which film to see (or not, in the case of TCM). I was discussing Monster From Hell in the wider context of the company's declining relevance. I remember only too well as a young teenager the widespread buzz and curiosity about TCM. I'm talking about the effects of films like TCM, like Frightmare, even movies like The Fiend on the UK perception of Horror. And that's not even mentioning The Exorcist ("the celluloid made me do it") hysteria that hit Britain. I think it is wholly fair to say that the public perception of contemporary horror had changed by the time Monster From Hell had been released and that the change was partly due to widespread awareness of TCM and was to the detriment of that kind of Hammer movie which had become anachronistic.

Dr. Schreck

Many of those involved in the Hammer Gothics thought them as morality plays, fairy tales really. Jimmy Sangster described it as "Long ago, in a castle on a hill lived a wicked Baron ...". In a way and in this light, the movies were anachronistic all along, as were the Universal Horrors or the German Expressionistic Cinema. But - as I theorised before - they implied a lot of things which could not be shown at the time. When they showed the gore and too much sex, it not longer fitted into the stories. Also, while one could have a fascination for the villains, fundamentally good always triumphed over evil ... and that changed in the Seventies as well. Probably it was a sign of the times, influenced by events like the Vietnam War, where it became quite a problem to tell who's the good guy and who's the bad. The clarity of Hammer in these matters might have been the greatest anachronism.

P.S.: Glad you liked the DVD, Chris. As said, it was a labour of love by all involved.

"I swore then that they would never be rid of me!"

m35541

It's also an English print not a German print. I believe someone above said that this was never released in Germany and the German dubbing was done especially for the DVD.

There are some nice prints coming out of Germany - including an uncut version of Island of Terror, a Curse of the Crimson Altar with lots of extras, and a composite of Blood of the Vampire which uses the unique footage from both US and UK DVD's (although it is still incomplete). For those of you without a multi-region DVD player there are also releases of most of the Hammers not available in the UK and they also tended to release prints of Hammers with the same extras as the US Anchor Bay OOP DVD's, many of which were missing from the equiavlent UK Studio Canal releases.

cesare

FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL was made in September/October 1972 and released in the UK in May 1974.

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE was made in July/August 1973 and not even released in the USA until October 1974. Its GLC-only release in England was in late 1976.

Sure, Hammer were reeling by the time FATMFH came out. But, at that point, their predicament had nothing whatever to do with TCSM.

Chris Fluffy

Cesare, thanks for this. Your dates are indisputable and perhaps I made a mistake in focusing too much on TCM -- which certainly helped informed an overall 70s perspective regarding Hammer. However, the argument still stands in relation to the overall trend in UK horror. By the time Monster From Hell came out, UK screens had already seen (among many others):

Assault
Fragment Of Fear
Ten Rillington Place
A Clockwork Orange
Crucible Of Terror
The Fiend
Night Hair Child
Revenge
Straw Dogs
Frenzy
The Flesh And Blood Show
Tower Of Evil
Don't Look Now
House Of Whipcord

And that's not counting US and Italian product or films like The Devils and Macbeth. All these titles (even the inept ones) are closer to 2009 horror than Hammer. In fact even AIP with Phibes and Scream & Scream Again were closer to the 1970s pulse than Hammer. And Hammer's thunder was stolen by the US majors not simply because of budget but because movies like The Omen and The Exorcist were set in the present day -- which is how Amicus mostly distinguished themselves.

However, as I mentioned earlier posts on this thread, in my opinion the single biggest factor responsible for the collapse of the company was the lack of good, core creative talent. Let's not forget, Hammer remained in business for just over three decades (late 40s to mid seventies -- not counting the Exclusive half dozen). It's not as if the company was a fixed entity that suddenly fizzled out in 1972. The company worked in many genres, using many different production techniques and styles and managed to stay relevant for most of the period. And that's because they had the right people in place, who were able to adapt. Hammer was a huge success story. There is nothing to suggest they couldn't have continued to adapt to meet the challenges of 70s and 80s cinema had they had the right people to do so. Sadly, they didn't.