Проклятие Франкенштейна (1957)

1957 horror film by Hammer Film Productions

The Curse of Frankenstein is a 1957 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions, loosely based on the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus 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 it was also followed by new versions of Dracula (1958) and The Mummy (1959), establishing "Hammer Horror" as a distinctive brand of Gothic cinema. The film was directed by Terence Fisher and stars Peter Cushing as Victor Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as the Creature, with Hazel Court and Robert Urquhart.

In 19th century Switzerland, Baron Victor Frankenstein is awaiting execution for the murder of his maid Justine. He tells the story of his life to a visiting priest. At age 15, the death of Victor's mother leaves him in sole control of the Frankenstein estate. He agrees to continue to pay a monthly allowance to his impoverished aunt Sophia and his young cousin Elizabeth. Soon afterwards, he engages scientist Paul Krempe to tutor him. After two years of intense study, the two begin collaborating on scientific experiments. One night, after a successful experiment in which they bring a dead puppy back to life, Victor suggests that they create a perfect human being from body parts. Paul assists Victor at first but eventually withdraws, unable to tolerate the continued scavenging of human remains, particularly after Victor's fiancée—his now grown up cousin Elizabeth—comes to live with them. Victor assembles his creation, with a robber's corpse found on a gibbet, and both hands and eyes purchased from charnel house workers. For the brain, Victor seeks out the ageing and distinguished Professor Bernstein, so that the creature can have a sharp mind and the accumulation of a lifetime of knowledge. He invites the professor to his house in the guise of a friendly visit but pushes him over a stair banister and kills him, making it look like an accident. After the professor is buried, Victor proceeds to the vault and removes his brain. Paul attempts to stop him, and the brain is damaged in the ensuing scuffle. Paul also tries to persuade Elizabeth to leave the house, as he has before, but doesn't want to tell her in detail about what Victor is doing, and she refuses. With all of the parts assembled, Victor brings the creature to life. Unfortunately, the creature's damaged brain leaves it violent and psychotic, without the professor's intelligence. Victor locks up the creature, but it escapes and kills an old blind man that it encounters in the woods. After Paul shoots the creature in the eye, he and Victor bury it in the woods. However, after Paul leaves town, Victor digs up the creature and brings it back to life. Justine, with whom Victor has been having an affair, claims that she is pregnant by him and threatens to tell the authorities about his strange experiments if he refuses to marry her. He has her killed by the monster. Paul returns to the house at Elizabeth's invitation the evening before she and Victor are to be married. Victor shows him the revived creature, and Paul threatens to report him to the authorities. The monster escapes up on to the roof where it threatens Elizabeth. Victor arrives with a gun and accidentally shoots Elizabeth after seeing the monster grabbing her. She falls unconscious, and without any more bullets, Victor throws an oil lamp at it and its clothes go up in flames, causing it to fall through the roof light and into a vat of acid, destroying all evidence that it existed. The priest does not believe Victor's story. When Paul visits him, Victor begs Paul to testify that it was the creature who killed Justine, but he refuses and denies all knowledge of the mad experiment. Paul joins Elizabeth, who is waiting outside, and tells her there is nothing they can do for Victor. After they leave, Victor is led away to the guillotine.

Producer Max Rosenberg originally approached Michael Carreras at Hammer Films with a deal to produce Frankenstein and the Monster (Rosenberg claims that he came up with the title) from a script by Milton Subotsky. Later, both men were cut out of their profit participation making only a $5000 fee for bringing the production to Hammer. Rosenberg and Subotsky later established Amicus Films, Hammer's main rival in the production of horror films during the 1960s. Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, who adapted Mary Shelley's novel for Hammer, never mentioned seeing Subotsky's script or being aware of Rosenberg's involvement. Sangster had worked as a production manager and said that he was keenly aware of production costs and kept the budget in mind when writing the script. Sangster said that his awareness of cost influenced him to not write scenes involving the villagers storming the castle that was typically seen in the Universal horror films "because we couldn't afford it". Sangster in an interview with film historian Jonathan Rigby indicated that he hadn't seen any of the Frankenstein films that Universal made. He just adapted the book "the way I saw it". Peter Cushing, who was then best known for his many high profile roles in British television, had his first lead part in a movie with this film. Meanwhile, Christopher Lee's casting resulted largely from his height (6' 5"), though Hammer had earlier considered the even taller (6 '7") Bernard Bresslaw for the role. Hammer refrained from duplicating aspects of Universal's 1931 film, and so it was down to make up artist Phil Leakey to design a new look for the 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. Character actor Patrick Troughton originally had a brief role as a mortuary attendant, but his scenes were cut from the finished movie.

The film was a tremendous financial success and reportedly grossed more than 70 times its production cost during its original theatrical run. According to Kinematograph Weekly the film was "in the money" at the British box office in 1957. According to another account the film made £300,000
in Britain and £500,000 in Japan. In the US the outstanding box office success was a surprise. In its first week at the Paramount Theatre on Broadway Variety reported Curse earned $72,000 and noted, "it gave the Par flagship its biggest opening week on straight film policy in the last two years". Variety continued to be impressed with its box office numbers as it opened across the US. "Curse" Terrific $30,900" in its first week in Los Angeles with supporting feature X the Unknown. In an era when horror films typically played for one week, Curse was often held over for two and sometimes three weeks in major markets like Boston.

A novelization of the film was written by John Burke as part of his book The Hammer Horror Film Omnibus (1966). The film was adapted as fumetti by Warren Publishing in 1966 (along with Horror of Dracula). It was also adapted into a 20 page comic strip published in two parts in the magazine The House of Hammer (vol. 1) #2 3 (December 1976 January 1977), published by General Book Distribution. It was drawn by Alberto Cuyas from a script by Donne Avenell (based on the John Burke novelization). The cover of issue #2 featured a painting by Brian Lewis of the Baron being attacked by his creation.