User Reviews

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In the Nineteenth Century, in the small village of Balkan, Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) is performing experiences of transference of human soul to another body, with the support of his assistant Dr. Hertz (Thorley Waters) and the young Hans (Robert Morris). Hans is in love with the deformed Christina (Susan Denberg), the daughter of a local landlord. When Christina's father is killed by three mean and arrogant men, Hans is unfairly accused of murder and sent to the guillotine. Christina commits suicide, and Frankenstein decides to transfer the soul of Hans to Christina's body. Later, he fixes Christina, and she becomes a gorgeous woman looking for revenge.

"Frankenstein Created Woman" is another good Hammer's film. The story is very naive and even funny, and in the present days, people would certainly be malicious with the fact of a man and a woman's soul living in the same body. Peter Cushing is great in the role of the intelligent and visionary Baron Frankenstein, certainly a man ahead of his time. The Playboy playmate Susan Denberg is amazingly beautiful, and I do not know what happened with this beautiful actress, who vanished after a few movies (including Star Trek's episode "Mudd's Women"), in 1966 and 1967. This movie is a very reasonable production of Hammer and a great entertainment. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Frankenstein Criou a Mulher" ("Frankenstein Created the Woman")

A strange addition to the Frankenstein cycle, and indeed the Hammer output, this film slotted neatly between 1964's THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN and 1969's FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED. The film is uncharacteristic of Hammer's other work in that it does not have the same Gothic atmosphere we are so used to seeing; instead, melodrama and romance take centre stage even to the Baron's antics. Even Terence Fisher's colour palette seems brighter than usual for his filmography.

However, although the film is not one of Hammer's best, there are still numerous reasons one might find it enjoyable. Peter Cushing stars in one of his best roles ever, and is indeed great as the scientist obsessed with discovering the secrets of life...and death. His ruthlessness is to the fore here, only superceded by his turn in the sequel. Unfortunately he does not appear that much in this film, and when he does it is as a father figure to Susan Denberg, with his intentions and personality not being clearly studied.

Cushing is unusually on the side of good in this film - at least as 'good' as a film this dark gets - and displays little of the cold violence we are used to seeing in his Frankenstein character. Thorley Walter is always good value and brings a touch of comic relief to the story. Susan Denberg and Robert Morris are successfully tragic as the doomed lovers, but kudos also goes to the trio of actors playing the bounders and cads who are the cause of all the violence in the first place. These fellows are totally obnoxious and yet believable. If you look closely you'll see a young Derek Fowlds in an early role.

The film's main disappoint is the lack of Frankenstein, but the story about the lovers holds the attention. Other disappointments are the way in which the main characters are murdered, all deaths are routinely staged and the censors are more to blame for this than anyone else. Also the main creation scene is also sadly missing from the finished print, let's face it we all love the bits where electricity sparks and lightning strikes and the monster comes to life, and it feels strangely left out here. The ending of the film is also anti-climatic in that it feels more than a little rushed. Still, all of the actors and actresses come out of this film looking good and it comes off as a nicely polished, well-rounded story which ties up neatly at the end and even achieves a kind of 'fairytale' ambiance.

There's more going on in this little Hammer than meets the eye. The script reaches for something beyond the usual Frankenstein story, and Terence Fisher accommodates with keenly focused, at times inspired, direction. Start thinking about what is inferred when the soul of a boy, the son of a murderer, is transfered to the body of a crippled, deformed girl. The resulting action does not follow a clear and easy "good verses evil" scenario. Within the confines of a Hammer movie's melodrama, Fisher, a classical stylist and at times a superb artist, often created magic. This is one of those times. The performances are all equally compelling. Cushing gives the Baron more texture here than in any of the other films, I think. Thorley Walters is a good foil, and his befuddled affection and respect for the Baron makes some of this really rather touching. Arther Grant's photography has never been better. I urge viewers to watch the film with an open mine. This is not the usual horror film; it's more a fantasy, a fairy tale.

As a little boy, Robert Morris saw his convicted criminal father executed on the gallows, and years later returns to the gallows as the associate of the resurrected Victor von Frankenstein (Peter Cushing), brought back to life himself before his soul left his body. In possession of Morris's head, Cushing uses it to resurrect the deceased Susan Denberg who, possessed by Morris's spirit, vows revenge and goes on a murdering spree. It's colorful and often slow-moving, moody and atmospheric, not overly gory but not overly memorable either.

The Hammer franchise of horror went on far too long, going a decade past this, and becoming far more sexual and bawdy than it perhaps needed to be. Cushing could play these types of roles in his sleep and instills sincerity in every character he plays. Morris is handsome and veril, Denborg sweet and alluring. The film finally takes off in the last 20 minutes and leaves the viewer on a roller coaster of horror that the previous 70 minutes seemed to lack. Compared to other Hammer movies that I've seen, this is sort of bland and I can't really rated higher than I did simply because of its gorgeous atmosphere.

For their fourth Frankenstein movie, the folks at Hammer have come up with the novel (and cheaper) twist of having the doctor's latest creation presented as a beautiful, buxom female. No disfigured, staggering, stitched-together monster here.... just a blonde bombshell out on a jolly weekend killing spree! The series comprised of seven films in total, and in retrospect it's pretty clear that this is the most unique and unorthodox of the lot. Having said that, it would be inaccurate to say that it is one of the best. OK, the storyline may be more intriguing than usual, but there is still the problem that some of the "science" is decidedly silly, and at certain points the narrative slows down to a crawl.

Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) is busy experimenting with the idea of capturing a soul before it leaves the body of a dead person. He has calculated that souls do not leave at the exact moment of death, but stick around until over an hour later. Frankenstein is determined to "catch" a departing soul using a machine he has invented. He then hopes to store the captured soul until he can find a body to put it into! He gets his chance when one of his young associates, the simple-minded Hans (Robert Morris), is falsely accused of murder and sentenced to death at the guillotine. During the execution, Hans's lover Christina (Susan Denberg) is so overcome with grief that she throws herself into a nearby river and drowns. Frankenstein successfully captures Hans's soul as it leaves his decapitated corpse. He then transfers it into Christina's body. Trapped within this female body, Hans's soul still lives on, determined to exact revenge upon the trio of murderers who framed him for a killing that he did not commit....

On the whole, Frankenstein Created Woman is an enjoyable horror flick, but it very rarely generates genuine chills. There IS one gruesome sequence in which Christina keeps Hans's severed head in her room and converses with it about their next move (!) Apart from that, however, the film is relatively tame in terms of fear, gore and suspense. The pleasure comes instead from watching the cast do their thing, especially Cushing, who now sports streaks of grey hair at his temples that make his appearance more spine-tingling than ever. Also good are Thorley Walters as Cushing's befuddled sidekick, and Peter Blythe as Anton, the most despicable of the three unpleasant killers. The film's production values are pretty good, with an atmospheric laboratory setting, plus some other effective - if limited - interiors and exteriors. For fans of the Hammer style, this is a must.... but others will probably find sufficient charm and nostalgia on display to enjoy it too.

In a small village Hans is in love with the disfigured Christina. Meanwhile nearby, Baron Frankenstein is conducting some blasphemous research. When Hans is wrongly accused of murdering Christina's father and guillotined, she commits suicide and the Baron has two fresh bodies with which to experiment …

This isn't one of my favourite Hammer films, mostly because the revenge plot is pretty basic; obnoxious guys tease ugly woman, ugly woman kills herself, ugly woman gets reanimated and transformed into a beauty by mad scientist, now-beautiful woman uses her charms to exact bloodthirsty justice upon still-obnoxious guys. The most interesting idea is to what extent the creature is Christina or Hans, or both, but the film doesn't really explore this beyond a couple of throwaway lines. It's still a lot of fun though, with all the usual quality Hammer trappings (great period sets, rich colours, lots of creepy moments) and of course a stunning performance by Cushing, in his fourth outing as the dreadful evildoer. For me, Cushing is the definitive Frankenstein, by a long long chalk. He makes the man utterly cold and ruthless; he doesn't care about anybody or anything except his insane work, uses people to his own ends, has no scruples, is an intellectual snob and has no patience for anyone beneath him. Cushing uses every line and gesture to intimate this; an offhand flick through the Bible, endless put-downs of Walters and others, his use of gloves (he literally has no feelings), his constant piercing stare of dismissive superiority. He is Frankenstein. Compare him with say, the foppish performance by Kenneth Branagh in his 1994 production, and it's easy to see why Cushing was such a great actor and such an asset to Hammer films. Basic, but satisfying horror fare.

In yet another twist on the Frankenstein mythos, the Baron (Peter Cushing) turns a disfigured character into a normal looking human being, while the brain transplant standard is replaced here by a soul transplant. It makes me wonder if James Brown might have been a fan.

The first thing I noticed when the Baron was removed from his self imposed cryogenic sleep was how easily his assistant Wertz (Thorley Walters) was able to move his frozen arms away from his chest. But at least the Baron redeemed himself with his latest theory, the idea that one's soul stays with the body for a time if suspended in a death like state. This all comes in handy when another of the Baron's aides is put to death for a murder he didn't commit. When Hans' (Robert Morris) execution by guillotine is witnessed by his girlfriend Christina (Susan Denberg), the distraught young woman commits suicide by drowning.

The whole soul transference business didn't make a lot of sense to me but it made for an interesting tale of revenge and murder on the part of the transformed Christina. She takes out the three dandies that ridiculed her and beat her father to death and did it in pretty elegant style if you consider the new look as a blonde bombshell she acquired along with the soul work over.

Well I guess none of it has to make any sense if you're a Horror film fan, and coming into this year's Halloween celebration, these flicks were all over the place. There are enough horror elements here for those who like to see blood, and for romance fans, this wouldn't be the first time a guy lost his head over a girl.

Of all the Peter Cushing Frankenstein films, this one is the most unusual. Instead of the usual grave robbing and sewing bits and pieces together to make a monster, this one chooses an entirely different path. Instead of experimenting on the dead, this film finds the doctor working on proving that the soul remains in the body after death. He establishes this by cryogenically suspending himself and having his assistants revive him. However, when his youngest assistant is framed for murder, the doctor experiments on whether he can preserve the man's soul after he is guillotined. Luckily, at about the same time, the condemned man's girlfriend drowns herself--thus providing a receptacle for the man's soul. So, in an odd twist, a dead man's soul is now embedded in a woman that Frankenstein revived from the dead.

Now at first, this dead lady has no idea who she is. To make it even more confusing, originally she'd been disfigured but when she was being revived the doctor also made her look beautiful--and very different. Now here is where the plot gets really interesting. The lady does recover her memories of the young executed man but she tells no one. That's because she plans to track down the three real murderers and exact her revenge.

This is a great idea and so far, this is one of the best movies in the series. However, now come the silly parts. First, oddly, the lady can both talk in her voice AND the voice of the dead man. Now she doesn't have his vocal chords but still it manages to sound exactly like him. Right. Second, she apparently is carrying around the head of the executed man. Despite being old and supposedly decayed, the guy's head looked pretty good--like he'd only been dead a day or so--not several weeks. If the film had just omitted these two silly bits, the film would have easily earned an 8 or 9. As it is, however, it seemed pretty silly starting at about 2/3 of the way through the film. Now the revenge angle was great--they just should have carried it off a bit better.

Overall, a decent film and one that even non-horror films probably will enjoy thanks to good acting and a few changes that make the film seem like not just another Frankenstein film.

For the fourth time in approximately ten years, horror legend Peter Cushing gives image to the eerie Baron Victor Frankenstein. This chapter seems to be Hammer's take on the classic "Bride of Frankenstein" tale, although there's no real connection with the Universal classic or Mary Shelley's legendary tale. It does, however, guarantee a lot of entertainment, action and black comedy. The mighty Baron has retired to a small, deeply catholic town where he continues his ambitious experiments with the help of the local doctor and his servant. Frankenstein discovers that a man's soul continues to live even though flesh and tissue have died. So, if he could find a way to capture the soul and preserve it, he's able to transfer the essence of being into another body! The perfect occasion to test this suddenly occurs when the servant is falsely accused of murder and sentenced to the guillotine. When his girl then also takes her own life, Frankenstein immediately has a host body for the preserved soul. Naturally, things get a little out of hand and before he realizes it, our beloved Baron is wanted for witchery and blasphemy again! The story is amazingly grotesque and exaggerated but it nevertheless remains fascinating to see Peter Cushing play God. His overly sophisticated style and his "I'm better than you and I know it"-attitude are a joy to watch. It's intriguing to see Cushing's character develop over the series. He becomes more malevolent every sequel while his opponents only get dumber. There's a good dose of suspense, some really nice scenery (the guillotine close-ups!) and enough bloodshed to satisfy well-trained Hammer fans. This isn't Hammer's best film but certainly one of the most entertaining ones. They simply don't make 'em as cool as this anymore! Two more sequels followed as well as a sort of remake that didn't star Cushing (The Horror of Frankenstein)

The film 'Frankenstein created woman' is a film about a man named Hans (Robert Morris) who is wrongly accused of murder and is sentenced to death by Guillitine. After his execution a man named Dr.Baron Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) borrowed his body for an experiment, capturing his soul and transferring it into Hans girlfriends body - who of which drowned herself after Hans was executed. When (Christina Cleeve) she awoke with her new soul, she went out on a limb to track down the three men who were the real murderers and kill them.

This film is fantastic and superb in every way for its great plot, good acting and mysterious/dark atmosphere helped make this film into my favourite vengeance movie of all time. What I love mostly about this film was how cunning and devious Christina Cleeve was when she was seducing the three real murderers, who were responsible for Hans' death for her outstanding beauty and adulterous charm was so captivating it seemed like she was of the devil. Another scene I quite admired that contributed towards the spookiness of this film was when Christina was talking to Hans' cut-off head in her bedroom and taking verbal orders from it on who she should kill next. There were, however, certain aspects in this film I didn't fully understand. When Hans was in court being charged with murder, why didn't he use his girlfriend Christina as an alibi for she was with him when the victim was murdered; Was it because he was embarrassed for people to know that he was acquainted with her (as she was deformed and twisted at the time) or some other reason. What ever reason it was, I'm sure it wasn't worth being executed for. Another bit I didn't understand was how Christina Cleeve knew who the real murderers were when she awoke with Hans' soul because Hans never knew who they were. Anyway, if you haven't seen this film, do watch it, for its an outstanding production and if you like 'Terence Fisher' films, you'll definitely like this one.

Not the best of the series, I do put Curse of Frankenstein, Revenge of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed above it, but it is much better than Evil of Frankenstein and Horror of Frankenstein(both of which are from personal opinion among Hammer House of Horror's weakest).

Frankenstein Created Woman does take time to get going, like Evil and Horror except not as badly(Created Woman's story is actually interesting). More could have been done with Anton's death scene which is too brief and lacking in tension(again personal opinion), considering that out of the three men he's the one you hate the most.

Frankenstein Created Woman is well made though, not as much as Curse, Revenge and Destroyed but the photography is top notch, having a beautifully dream-like and deliciously macabre quality to it(especially the shots of the guillotine, they gave me chills), the costumes are sumptuous and the sets do give off the appropriate Gothic atmosphere. Some say that it looks skimpier compared to Curse, Revenge and Destroyed, others will argue that it matches the grimmer tone compared to the other Hammer Frankenstein films, this viewer belongs in the latter camp. Terence Fisher shows that he is more than up to the job, it's a taut directing job that shows a mastery of mood and atmosphere with striking visuals to match, while the music score is appropriately eerie.

The script explores several different elements(including psychological horror, sensuality, fear presented in a fairy-tale-like way and humour) and actually balances them very neatly. that was refreshing after seeing too many films with scripts and plots that try to do too much and come over as under-explained and muddled. The humour is very witty too, did get a good laugh at Frankenstein's very short and blunt answer to "Do you expect us to believe this childish rubbish, sir? Do you take us for fools?". The story is the most ambitious of the Hammer Frankensteins and is very different for them, the soul transference a really interesting concept and it was done more than adequately, though even more maybe could have been done with it. Even with the slow start, the story is always engaging and has enough suspense and excitement to keep one engrossed(the beginning is remarkably powerful and Christina's conversing with Hans's severed head is one Hammer's most chilling scenes), sure it does get very daft in places and has logic lapses galore but that is not unusual for Hammer and it's part of the charm.

The characters carry the film very well, it is easy to feel sympathy for Christina and Hans and feel repulsion for Anton, Karl and Johann. Frankenstein as ever is entertaining and while he's clearly "evil" he does show a sympathetic side too. Peter Cushing is terrific as he always was as the definitive interpretation of the Baron and Thorley Walters gives amusing and sympathetic support. Of the supporting cast, faring the best were Susan Denberg who is a creepy and poignant(not to mention sexy) Christina and Peter Blythe who is chillingly vile as Anton. Robert Morris is movingly engaging as Hans, and while Johann is a very atypical role for Derek Fowlds he does do very well with the character. All in all, a solid as rocks fourth entry of the Hammer Frankenstein series and an example of being ambitious paying off. 8/10 Bethany Cox