The Curse of Frankenstein 4K Release – A deep dive with Steve Rogers

We recently announced the restoration of one of the greatest horror movies of the Twentieth Century, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). It’s the latest title to be added to Hammer’s Limited Collector’s Edition range. Hungry for more information, we made our way to Hammer Towers and rang the huge iron bell to summon the studio’s Cryptkeeper, Steve Rogers…

Hammer News: Before we get into the nitty gritty, I’m keen to know how the brand new 4K restoration looks and feels. What stood out most for you visually?

Steve Rogers: Everything, to be honest. The image is sharp and vivid and the colour grading is perfect – especially with the HDR grading on the UHD. The Curse of Frankenstein is a landmark film – not just for Hammer or British film, but for cinema worldwide – and it will never look better than this. Fans can check out the trailer and see for themselves.

HN: James Bernard’s score for the work is considered to be one of his best. Even that opening music is so atmospheric and evocative – chilling stuff. I think it was his first score where he had a full orchestra at his disposal, and he certainly makes the most of it. Has the soundtrack been cleaned up and enhanced for this release? If so, how does the music sound?

SR: It’s rarely mentioned in any detail as the majority of the viewers’ “wow factor” necessarily focuses on the image but, for all Hammer restorations, the audio gets as much attention as the pictures and this one is no exception. Mark Stanborough (who heads up restoration at Hammer) and our restoration partner, Silver Salt, have ensured that any random clicks, pops and other unwanted artefacts are removed and that the film’s audio is restored, as with the image, to the best extent that the source material allows. The clean mono is then used to create an immersive 5.1 for both home video and cinema use.

HN: Was it a complex restoration?

SR: Very much so – it took nearly a year from when we received the raw 4K scans made by Warner Bros to locking the final 4K restoration. I'm actually going to quote from the booklet notes so you can understand the sheer amount of work that went into this particular job:

"The Curse of Frankenstein has suffered many below-par releases in the Digital Age due to the deterioration of its original camera negative. Like many Eastmancolor negatives from the mid-to-late 1950s, the stock has faded badly, particularly in the yellow layer. Previous UK releases had been transferred from intermediates (struck from the original negative) so results were disappointing. Held by Warner Bros. in Burbank, the 35mm original negative was scanned at 4K resolution (16bit) along with the original YCM separation protection masters – these are three monochrome reels produced at the time of original production that split the negative colour into individual primary records (yellow, cyan and magenta), the idea being that should the negative become damaged they could be photochemically printed back together to make a new negative. Modern techniques mean this process can be done digitally. 

After examination and tests, it was decided to predominantly use the recombined YCM separations – with the exception of the main titles that were sourced, due to being just white text on a smoking red background, from the camera negative – as this retained a far deeper colour palette as well as being a more even contrast.

Warners scanned all film materials on a Lasergraphics Director scanner before recombining the YCM separations and the results were shipped to Silver Salt in London for extensive restoration. The recombined YCM scans required additional work to re-align the different colour records due to the individual reels of film being warped and not perfectly registered (showing at times as colour fringing on edges). HS ART Diamant was used to perform this task as well as also being utilised in stabilising any weaving or movement at splices (whilst preserving original facets such as camera moves) and also to de-flicker the image – there was density fluctuation throughout with colour completely changing halfway through some scenes. Due to the three individual colour layers, this meant that not only was there a very high degree of dirt on the original film surface (showing as white specks) but also different colour dirt on each of the combined yellow, cyan and magenta records (showing as blue, red and green respectively) meaning considerably more digital repair being required. Digital Vision Phoenix, HS ART Diamant and PFClean software was used for the dirt removal in a combination of semi-automatic and manual fixes.

The infamous close-up shot of the eyeball was missing from both the original negative and separations but the print in the Hammer archive did contain the shot; unfortunately, it was very colour-faded and not usable. Warner Bros. did locate an element but it was also in poor shape so it took considerable effort to restore. The dupe opticals where the image dissolves (picture transitions) or fades to black were a very different contrast, colour and geometry to the original footage meaning extensive grading/aligning to match."

HN: That sounds like it was a huge job of work. How is it that Warners had previously scanned in the film materials?

SR: Due to deals made back when the film was made in 1956, Warner Bros have distribution rights for the world apart from the UK (which is Hammer’s territory for this particular film). Part of the process for any restoration is finding the best available materials – and these were found to be with Warners. The team at The Warner Archive Collection have been wonderful to partner with to make this restoration possible, and they were happy to supply the scans for the restoration work. This geo-specific distribution deal is why our Blu-ray discs are region-locked – to abide by the deal signed in 1956.

HN: Are the UHD discs locked also?

SR: No. UHD discs are a region-free format and our UHDs are not locked, as per our previous releases.

HN: Ah – I didn't know that! Now, everybody knows the basic Frankenstein myth, but there’s so much more to this film. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, can you give us a brief overview of its storyline?

SR: A Victorian scientist plays God by creating a new person from a collection of dead human body parts. It does not go well for either of them.

HN: To call the movie a hit with the public is something of a timid understatement. During its original run, Curse generated more than 70 times its production costs. I’m going to pose the question Michael Carreras and the other Hammer execs must have been asking themselves at the time of its original release… What made it so incredibly attractive to the cinema-going public of 1957?

SR: It was fresh and new and thrilling. Even though Universal had scored a hit decades prior with their cycle of Frankenstein and Dracula films, by the early 1950s “horror films” had descended into farce and parody. Also they were all in black and white – this one was in full colour and deadly serious.

HN: The full colour thing is important, right? That landed Hammer in trouble, or potential trouble, with the BBFC, didn’t it?

SR: The entire film got them in trouble with the BBFC – colour was just part of it. It was standard practice at the time to submit the shooting script to the BBFC for their opinion. They didn't like the original Subotsky draft and they REALLY didn't like Sangster's screenplay. After it was filmed, the BBFC initially saw the finished film for assessment in black and white and asked for a number of cuts – then, at a certain point, they remembered that they should have been reviewing it in colour. When they finally saw the colour version the fireworks went off and fresh rounds of cuts were demanded. So, the version of the film that we have restored is the UK theatrical version – the original, uncensored version is now long lost.

HN: Prior to this, Hammer had arguably done horror once, back in their first phase with The Mystery of the Mary Celeste (1936), and some of their post-war output like Four-Sided Triangle (1953) and The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), flirts with the genre. But this was their first, full-on swing at a horror movie. What took them down this path?

SR: Following the success of The Quatermass Xperiment and its “science-horror” content, Hammer’s finely-tuned business antenna was certainly twitching in the direction of horror, thanks to encouraging feedback from the cinema circuits. From 1947 for ten years Hammer had followed trends in film-making but, by rolling the dice, creating a horror film in colour and treating the subject matter seriously, for the first time they actually set the trend. It was undoubtedly a gamble, but box office takings were immense and the risk was obviously worth the reward.

HN: The Curse of Frankenstein famously divided the critics. Some ‘got it’ immediately and sang its praises, whilst others were appalled that a horror film contained moments of horror. Do you think the film retains its power to shock?

SR: You’d think not, given that it was an X in 1957 and is now a 12, but it really does. And none of it is jump-scares or editing tricks – it is all down to direction and performance, which is pretty much flawless. Christopher Lee always used to correct interviewers when they called Hammer’s gothics “horror films” – he would tell them that they were “terror movies”, a distinction that may be lost on a lot of people, but he was probably right.

HN: It’s often said that Curse changed everything for Hammer. Is that your take? What was its impact on the studio?

SR: Seismic. It changed Hammer from a creator of B-movies (and the odd A-picture) with ties to low-rent American producers into a global player who the major film studios courted. It’s hard to overstate the effect that The Curse of Frankenstein had on Hammer – but it was all prologue to what would happen a year later with Dracula.

HN: And in terms of how we perceive and make horror films, Curse remains an enormously influential work. Could you give me some idea of the effect, stylistically speaking, that it had on the movies that followed it, both with Hammer productions and beyond?

SR: Without getting deep into the weeds about style and mise en scène I’d say that the thing it contributed to everything that followed was to take itself seriously (though still with a twinkle in its eye) and cast actors who not only believed in the part they were playing but were able to convey that believability to the viewer. Sounds obvious now but, at that point in time, horror films were a joke to the viewing public and all done with a nod and a wink.

HN: Quite aside from the effect it had on Hammer and horror in general, Curse was hugely important in respect of Peter Cushing’s career and was the movie that set him on the way to silver screen stardom. First question – is that a fair summation? And follow up – how good is Cushing in The Curse of Frankenstein?

SR: Cushing had turned up in films previously in supporting roles but he’d earned his spurs on live television, most notably in a barnstorming adaptation of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and was a multi-award-winning television actor. He was a big fish but he was in a small pool – and it was rare (if ever) that a TV star could transition to “the movies” with equal success. He obviously put the lie to that with his performance in this film and with his subsequent career.

As to “how good is he”? The plot to The Curse of Frankenstein is ridiculous and fanciful on any level you’d care to name, but Cushing’s absolute conviction in his character’s absolute conviction grounds everything to a level of believability no-one had seen before in a horror film. Ever. Viewers saw the poster or trailer and came for the Creature, but they stayed for Cushing.

HN: This is from Christopher Lee’s autobiography, Lord of Misrule: ‘Playing the Creature taught me to appreciate just how great the skill was that Boris [Karloff] had used in creating his Monster… And perhaps, in a way, that helped me to adjust to the very notion of working in the horror genre. It was a case of inventing a being who was neither oneself nor anybody else, but a composite of pieces of other people, mostly dead.’ How would you describe Lee’s take on ‘The Creature’? And what makes his performance so special?

SR: It’s a massively underrated performance. The legend is that he was cast because he was both tall and cheaper than Bernard Bresslaw, but I can’t believe that’s wholly the case. Terence Fisher always cast his films well because he knew that if he did so then the actual production would go smoothly. And Lee’s performance is a masterclass in mime – trying to move but limbs not co-ordinating, reacting with anger when it sees its own murderer, absent-mindedly protecting itself from the blind man’s stick... these are all extremely well-thought-out and well-performed actions, not just some tall guy wandering around with his arms stretched out. Lee was to apply the same mime technique to even more powerful effect two years later in The Mummy.

HN: This will obviously be part of Hammer’s Limited Collector’s Edition range, so quite aside from the 4K restoration, this release will offer a wealth of material celebrating and throwing new light on The Curse of Frankenstein. Could you talk us through what we’ve got to look forward to, please?

SR: There’s quite a bit to look forward to, actually – I think the full running time of the Limited Collector's Edition is more than 900 minutes. Chapter and verse is on the product page here and there's the usual mix of new and archive on-disc content, chunky booklet and House of Hammer comic that fans and collectors have come to expect, but it's worth spending some time on a few of these.

Looking at the new, Hammer-created content first, we've got a brace of new commentaries (author and critic Kim Newman, horror anthologist and writer Stephen Jones and Barry Forshaw, author of British Gothic Cinema, in one and Heidi Honeycutt, writer, filmmaker and film programmer, and cult movie expert Toby Roan in the other) alongside some standout new features:

Recreating the Creature: Phil Leakey’s Creature make-up is the stuff of legend and an inspiration to generations of budding make-up artists. Academy Award-winner Dave Elsey, from make-up/FX wizards Igor Studios, creates his version of this iconic make-up on actor James Swanton alongside comments from Phil himself – courtesy of a previously unheard audio interview – and a newly-recorded interview with Phil’s son Peter.

Beside the Seaside: Actor Madeline Smith visits Peter Cushing’s beloved home town of Whitstable in the company of Hammer expert Wayne Kinsey, to learn more about the man behind the actor.

A Fitting Vocation/Topped and Tailed: Wardrobe Mistress Molly Arbuthnot’s contribution to Hammer’s gothics are often overlooked but cannot be underestimated. In this two-part programme, the bfi’s Jo Botting takes a look at Molly’s life and career and is then is joined by Professor Melanie Bell and actor Melvyn Hayes, who was costumed by Molly at Bray for his role as young Victor, to discuss Molly’s work on The Curse of Frankenstein.

Good or Tuesday?: Jimmy Sangster rose through the production ranks at Hammer to become one of their key creatives and an influence on many who followed. Writer/actor Mark Gatiss, writer/publisher Dick Klemensen, author Stephen Laws, screenwriter/novelist Stephen Gallagher, screenwriter/producer David Pirie and writer/publisher Wayne Kinsey discuss the man and the impact of his work.

A Gothic History of Frankenstein: Scriptwriter and novelist Stephen Volk discusses Shelley’s original novel, its adaptation to cinema and the legacy of Hammer’s genre-defining 1957 film.

Painting with Fine Brushes: Little Shoppe of Horrors’ Dick Klemensen introduces this previously unheard audio interview with cinematographer Jack Asher, who gives a personal insight into one of his best-known works.

HN: Blimey!

SR: Plus some previously unseen archive interviews with Hugh Harlow and Jimmy Sangster – as well as the legacy special features included in both Hammer's and Warner's previous Blu-ray releases.

HN: That's a very comprehensive set!

SR: But there's yet more... the Limited Collector's Edition also includes a sixth disc, exclusive to this release and unavailable elsewhere, that contains the 150-minute documentary Flesh and Blood (including audio bloopers from the narration session and some lovely, behind-the-scenes footage of Cushing and Lee making their final recording together) as well as the aborted TV pilot for the Tales of Frankenstein series, a legacy commentary and a documentary on this pilot that was made ten or so years ago but never released.

HN: What on earth is Tales of Frankenstein?

SR: Due to the success of The Curse of Frankenstein and Hammer's subsequent production deal with Columbia, Columbia subsidiary Screen Gems worked with Hammer to create a pilot for a new anthology series using the Baron as a focal point around which different stories could be told. It ended in acrimony and, three decades later, Columbia let the film lapse into the public domain – this is why there's a lot of bootlegs floating around. We've featured the best available master but it's still VHS-level quality. If anyone out there has a copy of the film materials in their archive then we'd love to hear from them.

HN: The 4K version of Curse is having its world premiere in early October. How did the idea for it come about, and can you remind us what the evening will entail?

SR: As you know, this is Hammer’s 90th year – we began celebrating last November with the West End premiere of the Heroes, Legends and Monsters documentary and we continue in October with the West End premiere of this brand-new 4K restoration of the film that brought the world Hammer Horror. The restoration premiere is being held at the same cinema in which it was originally premiered in 1957 and will include a special introduction, a post-screening Q&A, immersive reception and more.

HN: Just a few more questions; Victor Frankenstein. Despicable villain or misunderstood pioneer?

SR: No villain ever thinks they’re a villain (unless they’re Dr Evil), so it must be “misunderstood pioneer”.

HN: And finally… Hammer produced six sequels to Curse and there’ve been countless takes on Shelley’s source material since the last of those in the mid-70s. Why do we keep coming back to Frankenstein?

SR: Because it's a tremendously elastic concept that can range from pure literary adaptation to wildly adjacent riffs on the concept (Rocky Horror Picture Show, Lilo and Stitch) and from hard core drama (Ex Machina) to comedies (Weird Science) and kids stuff (Frankenweenie). It's the urtext of every "science creates something it shouldn't" story that was to follow.

HN: So why do you think we keep coming back to Hammer's The Curse Frankenstein? There have been many other adaptations, so what makes this one so special?

SR: I could be glib and say luck – and there may be an element of that – but by 1956 Hammer had put together a superb production team and combined that with a top notch cast to create something that more than exceeded the sum of its parts. In one of the new programmes on the set, Mark Gatiss says "in the white heat of making lots of stuff, people accidentally make art" and I think that undoubtedly happened here. It's why it's loved the world over.

Big thanks, as ever, to Steve for his time and inside information. You can find out how to pre-order The Curse of Frankenstein at Hammer’s online shop and we’ll be bringing you more on this groundbreaking title very soon!