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“Touch it! Go on, touch it!” Get your mind out of the gutter. The speaker isn’t talking about that “it.” Join your faithful Grue Crew – Doc Rotten, Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, and Jeff Mohr – as they uncover the true story of Frankenstein in Frankenstein: The True Story (1973) … or not.
Decades of Horror 1970s
Episode 109 – Frankenstein: The True Story (1973)
When the brilliant but unorthodox scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein rejects the artificial man that he has created, the Creature escapes and later swears revenge.
IMDb
- Director: Jack Smight
- Writers: Christopher Isherwood & Don Bachardy (teleplay), Mary Shelley (novel)
- Cast
- James Mason as Dr. Polidori
- Leonard Whiting as Dr. Victor Frankenstein
- David McCallum as Dr. Henry Clerval
- Jane Seymour as Agatha/Prima
- Nicola Pagett as Elizabeth Fanshawe
- Michael Sarrazin as The Creature
- Michael Wilding as Sir Richard Fanshawe
- Clarissa Kaye-Mason as Lady Fanshawe
- Agnes Moorehead as Mrs. Blair
- Margaret Leighton as Francoise DuVal
- Ralph Richardson as Mr. Lacey
- John Gielgud as Chief Constable (Police)
- Tom Baker as Sea Captain
Yet again, the Decades of Horror 1970s Grue-Crew delves into the realm of television mini-series with Frankenstein: The True Story, broadcast in two parts in 1973. Bill points out exactly why the title is one of the biggest misnomers in film history. Chad had a problem with the creature (Michael Sarrazin) being so handsome in the beginning but enjoyed its deterioration as the film progressed. Doc opines that the 2-hour edited version available on Amazon Prime is a hot mess of bad editing and should probably be avoided. Jeff once again goes a bit fan-boy, this time for David McCallum.
Your Grue-Crew universally enjoyed the cast and some of the set pieces and are withholding judgment until the March 24, 2020 Scream Factory release. Maybe a quality copy of the unedited version will restore the film they remembered.
Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1970s is part of the Decades of Horror 3-week rotation with The Classic Era and the 1980s. In three weeks, the next episode in their very flexible schedule will be Hammer’s Twins of Evil (1971).
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