FRANKENSTEIN 1970 (1958) Blu-ray
Director: Howard W. Koch
Warner Archive Collection

Directed by Howard W. Koch (later the producer of such hits as THE ODD COUPLE and AIRPLANE) for producer Aubrey Schenk (who also had a hand in the story/screenplay along with Charles A. Moses, Richard Landau and George Worthing Yates of THEM fame) and released by Allied Artists, FRANKENSTEIN 1970 brings the great Boris Karloff back to his association with Mary Shelley’s enduring creation during a late 1950s cinematic resurgence.

As the last descendant of his infamous family, Baron Victor von Frankenstein (Boris Karloff, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN) is a bitter man living in a castle in Germany, his face disfigured as a result of Nazi persecution. In the modern year of 1970, an American film crew headed by a womanizing director (Don 'Red' Barry, BLAZING STEWARDESSES) rent and stay at the castle to shoot an anniversary TV special centered on the Frankenstein legend. The Baron is less than thrilled with his overseas houseguests (though he agrees to make an on-camera appearance), and coincidentally he's making a monster in his atomic age laboratory, hidden underneath a secret passageway in the family crypt. Using a clay bust and an 8x10 glossy headshot of actor Boris Karloff as his model, the Baron’s succeeds in bringing his creation to life, using the brain of his meek little servant Shuter (Norbert Schiller, THE RETURN OF DRACULA). The awakening creature is an eyeless giant wrapped in bandages and sporting a gauze-covered waste paper basket over his head. With plenty of potential victims including Jana Lund (LOVING YOU), Tom Duggan (BORN RECKLESS), Charlotte Austin (THE BRIDE AND THE BEAST) and John Dennis (GARDEN OF THE DEAD) roaming around the castle, the Baron has the bulky monster hunt for the perfect pair of eyeballs, even if he has to dispose of each and every one of them.

FRANKENSTEIN 1970 was made at a time when a slew of new Frankenstein pictures were being released theatrically (Hammer just had THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, AIP had I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN, etc.), as well as the old Universal series (many which starred Karloff) being aired on TV as part of the “Shock Theater” package. Luckily for horror fans, Karloff was still being typecast in these types of films, as the idea of having the actor who made the monster his own play Dr. Frankenstein was inevitable (he would play him one more time – in voice – in 1967’s stop-motion animated flick MAD MONSTER PARTY?). A quickly shot B movie rather mechanically directed by Koch (who produced THE BLACK SLEEP, VOODOO ISLAND, PHARAOH’S CURSE and other around the same period) which is often denounced by even the most forgivable fans (something I still can’t figure out), FRANKENSTEIN 1970 is still a lot of fun on the “guilty pleasure” level, and it gives us one of Karloff’s hammiest performances ever, exactly what this sort of endeavor calls for. It features an amusing supporting cast, some great gothic castle sets (mostly leftover from a Warner Bros. production, TOO MUCH, TOO SOON), some gratuitous shots of a heart being massaged and severed eyeballs being dropped, and a peculiar, lumbering, fully bandage-covered monster played by 6’5” former wrestler Mike Lane. Lane (who also doubles in the film as Hans the butler) revised the role of the Frankenstein monster in the 1968 “Monstrous Monkee Mash” episode of “The Monkees” and in 1976 on the NBC Saturday morning children's show “Monster Squad” (as “Frank N. Stein”), which was released on DVD a few years ago by Virgil Films.

After a pan and scan VHS tape was issued in 1997, Warner released FRANKENSTEIN 1970 widescreen on DVD in 2009 as part of their “Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics” set, which also included THE WALKING DEAD, YOU’LL FIND OUT and ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY. The DVD looked really good, but this Blu-ray presents the film looking as impressive as ever in 1080p HD and preserving the its original 2.35:1 Scope ratio. The transfer for this black and white film is extremely sharp, with nary a blemish to be found. The Blu-ray's image provides excellent reproduction of blacks, whites and shades of gray, and detail and contrast are also strong throughout the widescreen presentation. Audio is offered in an English DTS-HD MA 2.0 audio track, with dialog being crisp and very clear and without any detectable distortions and Paul Dunlap’s blaring score coming through nicely. Optional English SDH subtitles are also provided.

Carried over from Warner’s DVD is the very worthwhile audio commentary with film historian/author Tom Weaver and actor/film historian/monster prop collector Bob Burns, who join actress Charlotte Austin for a delightfully entertaining discussion. There’s a lot of well-spirited fun here, as the three recall the film, share anecdotes about the cast and filmmakers, and it really gets interesting when Weaver reads passages from the original shooting script (written as “Frankenstein’s Castle”) of bits which didn’t make it into the final film. Austin relays how she more recently showed the film to her grandchildren, and that they didn’t seem all that impressed. Although it’s not mentioned on the back cover, also included is a cool full frame one-minute TV spot (“Karloff, Karloff, Karloff!! The one, the only ‘King of Monsters’ returns to the screen as the demon of the atomic age!”). (George R. Reis)

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