Directed by Freddie Francis
Starring Peter Cushing, Peter Woodthorpe, Duncan Lamont, Sandor Elès, Katy Wild, David Hutcheson, Kiwi Kingston
Scream Factory’s Hammer series continues with The Evil Of Frankenstein (1964), the only picture in Hammer’s Frankenstein cycle not directed by Terence Fisher. Freddie Francis did this one.
Hammer went a different route with Frankenstein, following the doctor (Peter Cushing) instead of the monster. This let them come up with a different creature for each film. Since The Evil Of Frankenstein was done in collaboration with Universal, they could approach that studio’s “classic” look for the monster. (You know, the Boris Karloff/Glenn Strange sort of thing.) I’ve always found the results a bit, um, odd.
Nevertheless, this is a most welcome addition to the Scream Factory lineup. So far, the extras have not been announced, but the disc has a release date in mid-May. Highly recommended.
The Hannibal 8 
Toby, this good news, but I already have THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN(1964) in an eight movie collection of Hammer Horrors. Currently I’m in St. Louis, Missouri and I can’t check my DVD collection, but I think it was put out by Universal a few years ago. I’m happy with this collection. Although, if the new release of THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN is in the correct ratio and has some really good extra features included, I might consider it.
THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN holds a special place in my brain. It was the first Hammer horror movie that I remember seeing. It was the tv premiere on the NBC TUESDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES on January 2, 1968. At 84 minutes the suits(executives) at NBC-TV thought the movie was too short for a two-hour network tv slot, so Universal (the movie’s American distributor) tacked on 13 minutes.This tv version was filmed at Universal Studios in Hollywood. The new scenes involved a backstory that explains how the beggar girl Rena(Katy Wild) lost her voice as a younger child. It featured Maria Palmer and William Phipps as young Rena’s(Tracy Stratford) parents and Steven Geray as the village doctor. I don’t know if this segment will ever see the light of day again.
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That Blu-Ray set from Universal was very nice, but the aspect ratios put some people off. There were no extras.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Scream Factory offered up the TV footage as an extra.
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