The Revenge of Frankenstein

Peter Cushing - Dr. Victor Stein - Baron Frankenstein
Francis Matthews - Dr. Hans Kleve
Eunice Gayson - Margaret Conrad
Michael Gwynn - Karl the Synthetic Man
John Welsh - Bergman
Lionel Jeffries - Fritz
Oscar Quitak - The Dwarf, Karl Immelmann
Richard Wordsworth - Slensky
Charles Lloyd Pack - President of the Medical Council
John Stuart - Inspector
Arnold Diamond - Dr. Moelke
Margery Cresley - Countess Barscynska
Anna Walmsley - Vera Barscynska
Michael Ripper - Kurt

After the success of The Curse of Frankenstein, it was inevitable that Hammer would return to the Baron, but what of the story? The creature had been destroyed in a vat of acid at the end of Curse. After some deliberation, it was decided that Baron Frankenstein himself would be the focus of the series rather than his monster. Even so, this still created a problem, for Curse had concluded with the Baron being escorted out to the guillotine. Scriptwriter Jimmy Sangster's actual solution proved to be rather ingenious; he simply arranged to have the priest who had read the Baron his last rites executed in his stead, the executioner and his hunchbacked assistant (Oscar Quitak) being Frankenstein's paid accomplices.

In this episode, set in 1860, some three years after Curse, the Baron, now safely rescued from the blade of the guillotine and known as Dr Stein, has a thriving practice in Carlsbruck, catering to the whims of wealthy hypochondriacs. He has also set himself up at a hospital for the poor. It isn't compassion that has led him to care for the needy, though; rather the access the post gives him to harvest from their bodies the limbs and organs required to create a new creature. Helped in this task by his hunchbacked assistant Karl (Oscar Quitak) and Dr Hans Kleve (Francis Matthews), a young surgeon eager to learn the Baron's secrets, Frankenstein determines on transplanting Karl's brain into his newly created body, an operation the hunchback is all too willing to undergo. Surprisingly, the operation goes well and Karl, now played by Michael Gwynn) turns out to be both intelligent and articulate - just as in the Mary Shelley novel. Unfortunately, a violent encounter with a brutish night-watchman (George Woodbridge) damages the creature's brain, and as a result he begins to contort into the crippled state of Karl's former body.

The creature naturally goes on the rampage after this and is tracked down by the police in the expected manner. The Baron, meanwhile, is beaten to death by the patients he has so recklessly exploited for his experimental means luckily for him he has conveniently had the foresight to assemble a second creature, into which Dr Kleve now transplants the Baron's brain, making Frankenstein both creator and created The film concludes with the Baron resuming his practice in London's Harley street, now under the name of Dr Franck. Viewed today, the film has its points of interest, most notably Bernard Robinson's plush design work and Cushing's performance, now less manically driven. Taken as a whole, however, the film, though quite entertaining on the surface, is not without its faults: Terence Fisher's direction is too stately, Jack Asher's photography (though beautifully lit) too unadventurous in its movement, and the monster less than horrific (he even dies off screen).

The plot, meanwhile, has more holes than a Swiss cheese. The film starts off well, with a shot of the guillotine to which Frankenstein is being led for execution. However, not only is there no sign of Paul and Elizabeth (seen at the jail at the end of Curse) there are also no officials to oversee the execution, thus making it conveniently easy for the Baron to bribe the executioner and his hunchbacked assistant into beheading the priest instead of his good self (this isn't even shown, just alluded to with sound effects). The film also contains some rather unfortunate comic business, primarily with two gravediggers (Michael Ripper and Lionel Jeffries) and a hospital orderly (Richard Wordsworth), along with some lapses in both narrative and continuity (the Baron not only keeps his equipment locked up in a wine cellar, but Karl his assistant with it!). The film's suggestion that the monster has become a cannibal is also so subtly referred to as to be almost undetectable, while the creature into which the Baron's brain is transplanted at the end just happens to look and sound exactly like Peter Cushing! Yet despite its faults, the film did well at the box office.