Review of Tales of Frankenstein

Yet another short TV production of the horror perennial whose major point of interest nowadays resides in its being capped by the double-shocker end credits - "Produced by Michael Carreras" and "A Hammer Film Production" - despite the fact that, being shot in black and white and directed by Curt Siodmak, it is clearly emulating the Universal template of almost thirty years previously rather than the fresh angle given by Hammer themselves!; other remnants of that consequently archaic influence are shots lifted from Tod Browning's Dracula (1931; the brides of Dracula) and the INNER SANCTUM series (the talking head). Actually, this above-average program was a co-production between Hammer and Columbia and features both future Hammer (a respectable but dour Anton Diffring in the lead) and past Universal (Ludwig Stossel as a tavern-keeper) alumni. Intended as a pilot for a proposed 26 episode TV horror anthology series to be filmed partly on the Columbia backlot and at Hammer's Bray Studios, it is no surprise that it failed and the plans for the follow-ups aborted. Frankly, the new storyline is weak: despite the fact that Baron Frankenstein has still not completed his life-giving experiments, the villagers are already scared shitless of him(!) and, worse still, an out-of-town couple (including a moribund husband) call on him for a miracle cure!! Even so, the Karloff-like monster - another Universal nod in this anomalous Hammer entry - is suitably menacing (if nothing else) as played by Don Megowan - previously of the Columbia horror programmer THE WEREWOLF (1956), which I will be watching later on during this Halloween Challenge - and, as usual, that wholly intoxicating black-and-white Gothic atmosphere wins the day in the end.