Themes: Mad Scientists, Technology Run Amok, Experiments Gone Awry
Main Cast: Boris Karloff, Tom Duggan, Jana Lund, Don "Red" Barry, Charlotte Austin
Release Year: 1958
Country: US
Run Time: 83 minutes
Plot
This is one of the more off-beat entries into the Frankenstein sub-genre, in that it features the original Creature, Boris Karloff (who really hams it up) playing the disfigured grandson of the famed mad baron in a style that combines gothic horror with the awe and fear created by the newly dawned atomic age. The story begins in the title year and finds Victor the III living in the ancestral castle and strapped for the cash he needs to resurrect his grandfather's experiments. He needs a fortune because this time he wants to use atomic power to bring the monster to life. To scare up the needed cash, he lets a television crew come to his famous digs to shoot a show. He ends up getting a lot more than money from the cast and crew and eventually he succeeds in creating a brand-new Creature. Unfortunately, the monster proves to be as volatile as his predecessors, and tragedy for both master and creature ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Irwin Berke - Inspector Raab; Rudolph Anders - Wilhelm Gottfried; John Dennis - Morgan Haley; Norbert Schiller - Shuter; Mike Lane - Hans
Credit
Jack Collins - Art Director, Howard W. Koch - Director, John A. Bushelman - Editor, Paul Dunlap - Composer (Music Score), Gordon Bau - Makeup, Carl Guthrie - Cinematographer, Aubrey Schenk - Producer, Paul Dunlap - Set Designer, Aubrey Schenck - Screen Story, Richard Landau - Screenwriter, Aubrey Schenk - Screenwriter, George Worthing Yates - Screenwriter, Aubrey Shenck - Short Story Author, Charles A. Moses - Short Story Author
Frankenstein 1970 is a 1958 science fiction horror film, starring Boris Karloff and Don 'Red' Barry. This independent film was directed by Howard W. Koch, and its alternative titles were Frankenstein 1960 and Frankenstein 1975. Released on a low budget, the film was originally intended to be named Frankenstein 1960 but it did not sound futuristic enough. In October 2009, Warner Brothers released the DVD "Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics" which includes Frankenstein 1970 as one of the four films and features an audio commentary by co-star Charlotte Austin and historians Tom Weaver and Bob Burns.
Plot
Boris Karloff plays the role of Baron Victor Von Frankenstein, who suffered at the hands of the Nazis as punishment for not cooperating with them during World War II. He suffers much disfigurement but continues his work as a scientist. The baron allows a television crew to film a documentary about his monster-making family at his castle in Germany. The crew gives him enough money to buy an atomic reactor and uses it to create a hulking monster, which proceeds to kill off members of the crew for more spare parts.
