I like "The Curse of Frankenstein" which is a 1957 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions, loosely based on the novel Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley. It was Hammer's first colour horror film, and the first of their Frankenstein series. Its worldwide success led to several sequels, and the studio's new versions of Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959) and established "Hammer Horror" as a distinctive brand of Gothic cinema. The film was directed by Terence Fisher and stars Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein, Hazel Court as Elizabeth, and Christopher Lee as the creature.Peter Cushing, who was then best known for his leading roles in British television, was sought out by Hammer for this film. Christopher Lee's casting, meanwhile, resulted largely from his height (6' 5"). Hammer had earlier considered the even taller (6 '7") Bernard Bresslaw for the role. Universal fought hard to prevent Hammer from duplicating aspects of their 1931 film, and so it was down to make-up artist Phil Leakey to design a new-look creature bearing no resemblance to the Boris Karloff original created by Jack Pierce. Production of The Curse of Frankenstein began, with an investment of £65,000, on 19 November 1956 at Bray Studios with a scene showing Baron Frankenstein cutting down a highwayman from a wayside gibbet. The film opened at the London Pavilion on 2 May 1957 with an X certificate from the censors.

...and Victor Frankenstein is shown not that sympathetic even as a small boy. The story is being told in flashback by Victor (Cushing) as he awaits the guillotine. Baron Victor's mother has just died, leaving him an orphan, and he looks to be in his young teens, yet he apparently doesn't have a guardian nor a tear for his dead mother. Instead his interest is in hiring a tutor, Paul (Robert Urquhart). Paul takes the job, and their experiments and work together show that Paul is probably neglecting the liberal arts part of Victor's education in favor of the sciences. Their ultimate work together - by now Victor is a grown man - is to bring a small animal back to life.Victor wants to go further, he wants to bring a dead human back to life, and not just a deceased human. He wants to build him from body parts. Paul at first assists Victor in this experiment, but his heart isn't in it. His heart really isn't in it when Victor's distant cousin Elizabeth (Hazel Court) comes to live there, since she and Victor are betrothed. It is an arranged marriage. You get the feeling Elizabeth feels she owes this to Victor for supporting herself and her mother all of their lives, but she is fond of Victor, what little she knows of him, and she does NOT know about the human in progress in the lab.Victor crosses the line you just knew he was going to cross when he invites a great professor to his house to dine and then pushes him off the balcony of an upper floor and makes it look like an accident so he can have his brain for the creature. Paul didn't see the murder, but he does figure it out. Paul damages the brain so it will be useless to Victor, and implores Elizabeth to leave the castle and not marry Victor. Both acts are in vain.Victor builds the creature with the damaged brain anyways, and brings a very angry brute to life. I'd be angry too if I were the creature, since he (Christopher Lee) looks like one of the Beatles, down to the 60's haircut and the Nehru jacket, except a recently deceased version. To further add to Victor's crimes, he is bedding a servant girl in the house, and would probably continue to do so post marriage to Elizabeth, but the servant girl winds up pregnant. Hmmm. What to do? He has an angry murderous creature and a blackmailing overly curious pregnant servant girl. Watch and find out.Now Paul knows the whole story, and knows it to be true. The authorities think that the murdered were the work of Victor. After all, how could a man make a man out of body parts and bring that man to life? Poppycock. A word from Paul and Victor is free. But Paul has grown a fondness for Elizabeth and knows the darkness of Victor's heart. What will he do? Watch and find out.If you want atmosphere go watch the original Universal horror films. If you want pretty good storytelling in a horror film, even if isn't close to the original story, done on a budget but done fairly well- and what isn't done well is funny to the point of being endearing- see the Hammer horror films. They do tend to satisfy.

The essential Frankenstein movie.Based on Mary Shelley's famous novel. A scientist, Dr Victor Frankenstein (played by Peter Cushing) is researching how life can be given / regiven to dead animals. He hits upon the idea of creating a human life by combining body parts from dead people. His research is ultimately successful, but at what cost...?Surely one of the most well known horror-stories of all time. Modern versions are more about the aftermath of Frankenstein's creation, and turn into empty action movies. This version is probably the purest version in terms of telling the original story.Solid plot, good direction. Peter Cushing is great as Dr Frankenstein. Good support from Robert Urquhart, Hazel Court and Valerie Gaunt. Christopher Lee gives his career-defining and - shaping performance as the creature.

The Curse of Frankenstein was a monster smash at the UK box office. A low budget, colourful and Gothic re-telling of the Frankenstein story. Less baroque that the later Kenneth Branagh version of the 1990s this was the film that began the reputation of Hammer horror films.Christopher Lee plays the revived monster a world away from the flat headed and flat footed Boris Karloff whose makeup was trademarked to Universal Pictures.The real monster is Peter Cushing's Baron Frankenstein, an obsessive scientist, unethical and a cold blooded murderer. He performs medical experiments with his friend Paul Krempe (Robert Urquhart) to reanimate tissue. Whereas Krempe has doubts, Frankenstein has none.In fact the viewer has little sympathy for any of the main characters. Krempe damages the brain that Frankenstein has procured, the result is a homicidal monster. Krempe can never get away from his former pupil and you know he is attracted to his fiancée.The film is more melodramatic than horror but its very flawed. Their are good production values, it is colourful. The scene where the old professor takes a plunge is well photographed but the constant argument between Krempe and Frankenstein gets irritating.