Frankenstein 1970: World War II Gothic Horror
Frankenstein 1970 is a film I’ve heard a lot about, but never saw until recently. Shot as one of the Allied Artists double features for the Drive-in Circuit, most forgot about the movie. That is unfortunate, as it’s pure genre gold. Karloff plays a Frankenstein science descendant who gets his face smashed in by the Nazis. It turns out that Adolf’s boys don’t like it when you don’t help out Mengele’s science efforts.
25 years pass and Karloff gets a new idea. How about I trick a documentary crew into visiting my castle, so I can harvest their organs to make a Monster body for myself? The plan works, but the monster revolts before Karloff can do the brain plop. Now OG Frankenstein has to fight 1958’s 1970 Frankenstein for control.
The commentary was a great touch, as I love listening to Bob Burns talk about these movies. However, I just want to give Warner Archive a round of applause for diving deep into the Allied Artists archives. Our Drive-In history deserves to be brought into the HD era.
Boris Karloff Superstar
Boris Karloff spent his later years better off than Bela Lugosi. But, that’s not saying much. It seems that people forget that Karloff had a thriving career in the 1950s and 60s. The AiP films, The Grinch, Targets and even the Allied Artists films showed that the horror icon still had his chops.
Plus, new film students were rediscovering his crime movies, the dramas and even the 80 films he made before Frankenstein. It might be asking a lot for Warner Archive to bring these films to Blu-ray. However, if Frankenstein 1970 is any indication than Boris Karloff is in great hands at Warner Archive.
