FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969) It's aaaaaall about the brains I had to skip over two Hammer Frankenstein movies in my look at this series; I can't seem to find Evil Of Frankenstein or Frankenstein Created Woman anywhere. It's my understanding that they aren't really particularly necessary to the flow of this series. Peter Cushing returns as Dr. Frankenstein, whose further experiments with brain transplants are interrupted by the untimely intrusion of a burglar, who ruins everything. Funny how these movies have moved away from the original idea of Frankenstein as a man who is bent on creating new life, and have focused almost entirely on him giving people brain transplants. So Frankenstein, tiring of toiling alone, blackmails a local and slightly corrupt physician (Simon Ward) into helping him further his studies. You see, a former correspondent of Frankenstein, Dr. Brandt (George Pravda), had perfected the art of cryogenically freezing the human brain, sure to be quite useful to in Frankenstein's field. The problem: Brandt is stark raving mad and is holed up in a mental institution. Frankenstein is convinced that if he puts Brandt's brain into a new head, it'll relieve the pressure on the brain and the insanity will go away. (the latest in a long line of wacky hypotheses from this guy) Considering what happened at the end of The Revenge Of Frankenstein, hasn't it occurred to try using a healthy, normal brain just once? Is that too much to ask? Frankenstein might've been icy in the first two movies, but I wouldn't say he was really a villain, just...motivated. The last few movies must've seen somebody piss in his Shreddies, because he's pure evil here; blackmail, murder, driving others to murder and gloating about it, pimp-slappin' people up n' down the crescent...and that's just the first half hour. He's so cold, he continues to nonchalantly make snootily specific breakfast orders of the physician's squeeze (Veronica Carlson), even after he rapes the shit out of her. (later, seemingly less out of fear than genuine concern, she warns Frankenstein about the imminent arrival of some policemen. Nice to see that she didn't take that brutal, painful-looking rape as a hostile act or something) His performance is as fun as before, though; I particularly liked the awesomely brash confrontation in the physician's drawing room. Not a lot of actors can have so much fun being so emotionless; John Lithgow comes to mind, but not recently. While there's something definitely missing here compared to the first two movies, director Terence Fisher makes it work. The rape scene feels out of place and over the top in the wrong way, and I think that's a big part of what holds it back from the league of the first two films. But, while it's pretty talky (nothing new for this series), it always feels like it's going somewhere, it's moody, and it continues to follow the apparent trend of increased gruesomeness for this series. Grue is good. I also liked the editorial cartoon of Brandt- and Frankenstein-headed vultures; nice to see that these characters don't live in the sheltered bubble of what the script defines their lives with. Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (they just don't make titles like that anymore) is a worthy successor to the first two films; I have no idea about numbers three or four, though. The back of the box, for some reason, starts by describing events that don't happen until an hour in, and it uses the word "pitiable" twice. BACK TO THE F's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE