The Curse of Frankenstein – 1957

A Hammer production released by Wamer Brothers
Copyright MCMLVII
Clarion Film Production.
MPAA Approved Certi!icate No. 18491
RCA Sound Recording
Produced at Bray Studios
Eastmancolour by Humphries Laboratories
81 Mins
Storyline
The film introduces itself with the on-screen information:- “More than a hundred years ago, in a mountain village in Switzerland, lived a man whose strange experiments with the dead have since become legend. The legend is still told with horror the world over…..It is the legend of…..The Curse of Frankenstein.”
Watch the original trailer on YouTube
Crew
Function | Credited | Age at Release | Birth | Death | Age | Hammer Credits |
Art Director | Ted Marshall | 1 | ||||
Assistant Director | Derek Whitehurst | 28 | 2 Oct 1928 | 6 Dec 2005 | 77 | 16 |
Associate Producer | Anthony Nelson-Keys | 45 | 13 Nov 1911 | 19 Mar 1985 | 73 | 41 |
Camera Operator | Len Harris | 40 | 19 May 1916 | 21 Feb 1995 | 78 | 52 |
Casting | Dorothy Holloway | 58 | 7 Mar 1898 | 1972 | 73 | 1 |
Continuity | Doreen Soan | 31 | 1926 | Living | 95 | 3 |
Directed by | Terence Fisher | 52 | 23 Feb 1904 | 18 Jun 1980 | 76 | 31 |
Director of Photography | Jack Asher, BSc | 40 | 29 Mar 1916 | 1 Apr 1991 | 75 | 14 |
Editor | James Needs | 37 | 17 Oct 1919 | 2003 | 83 | 111 |
Executive Producer | Michael Carreras | 29 | 21 Dec 1927 | 19 Apr 1994 | 66 | 83 |
Hair Stylist | Henry Montsash | 51 | 17 Sep 1905 | 29 Sep 1974 | 69 | 16 |
Make-up | Phil Leakey | 48 | 4 May 1908 | 26 Nov 1992 | 84 | 48 |
Music Composed by | James Bernard | 31 | 20 Sep 1925 | 12 Jul 2001 | 75 | 24 |
Music Director | John Hollingsworth | 40 | 20 Mar 1916 | 29 Dec 1963 | 47 | 36 |
Produced by | Anthony Hinds | 34 | 18 Sep 1922 | 30 Sep 2013 | 91 | 84 |
Production Designer | Bernard Robinson | 44 | 28 Jul 1912 | 2 Mar 1970 | 57 | 46 |
Production Manager | Don Weeks | 52 | 15 Nov 1904 | 1 Mar 1988 | 83 | 30 |
Screenplay by | Jimmy Sangster | 29 | 2 Dec 1927 | 19 Aug 2011 | 83 | 65 |
Cast
Character | Actor | Age at Release | Birth | Death | Age | Hammer Appearances |
Aunt | Noel Hood | 46 | 25 Dec 1910 | 15 Oct 1979 | 68 | 1 |
Baron Victor Frankenstein | Peter Cushing | 43 | 26 May 1913 | 11 Aug 1994 | 81 | 24 |
Burgomaster | Andrew Leigh | 69 | 30 Jan 1887 | 21 Apr 1957 | 70 | 1 |
Creature | Christopher Lee | 34 | 27 May 1922 | 7 Jun 2015 | 93 | 22 |
Elizabeth | Hazel Court | 30 | 10 Feb 1926 | 15 Apr 2008 | 82 | 2 |
Grandpa | Fred Johnson | 57 | 6 Aug 1899 | 4 Dec 1971 | 72 | 6 |
Justine | Valerie Gaunt | 24 | 26 Jun 1932 | 27 Nov 2016 | 84 | 2 |
Lecturer | Middleton Woods | 70 | 20 Sep 1886 | 1974 | 87 | 2 |
Little Boy | Claude Kingston | 1 | ||||
Paul Kempe | Robert Urquhart | 35 | 16 Oct 1921 | 21 Mar 1995 | 73 | 2 |
Priest | Alex Gallier | 44 | 20 Mar 1912 | 9 Jun 1969 | 57 | 2 |
Professor Bernstein | Paul Hardtmuth | 68 | 2 Jul 1888 | 5 Feb 1962 | 73 | 1 |
Uncle | Raymond Ray | 1 | ||||
Warder | Michael Mulcaster | 45 | 3 Jan 1911 | 10 Aug 1984 | 73 | 3 |
Wife | Anne Blake | 48 | 4 Nov 1908 | 27 Jan 2000 | 91 | 3 |
Young Elizabeth | Sally Walsh | 6 | 15 May 1950 | Living | 70 | 1 |
Young Victor | Melvyn Hayes | 21 | 11 Jan 1935 | Living | 86 | 4 |
Footnotes
Little did they know it, but with the arrival of actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, Production Designer and miracle-worker Bernard Robinson and Photographer Jack Asher, Hammer now had more or less in place the team which would transform their fortunes virtually overnight.
So much has been said and written about “The Curse of Frankenstein” that it seems superfluous to say more. Suffice it to say that it was a seminal horror movie, showing dismembered body parts and large quantities of blood and gore in all their full-colour glory, and it (and its successors) have influenced the making of films of the genre ever since.
Hazel Court was already a dab hand at horror, having been scared witless by the rather unfriendly “Devil Girl from Mars” (1954). She worked again for Hammer in “The Man Who Could Cheat Death” (1959) and then starred in “Doctor Blood’s Coffin” (1960), before appearing for Roger Corman in his adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘”The Premature Burial” (1961); “The Raven” (1963) and “The Masque of the Red Death” (1964).
Melvyn Hayes, who plays the young Baron here, gained further fame, or perhaps notoriety, as Gloria in the BBC TV sitcom “It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum”.
Details were complied viewing the actual film.
Source of viewing copy – The Hammer Graveyard Collection