Sunday, December 15, 2013

Frankenstein Must Still Be Destroyed

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
Directed by Terence Fisher
Screenplay by Bert Batt

A second look at this Hammer production makes me think I had underrated it before.  For one thing, this film actually revolves around the notion that the brains Frankenstein transplants retain their memories and personalities even after surgery.  Having retained that memory, the "creature" of this film also bears a distinct grudge against the Baron.  In this iteration Frankenstein is not so much creating life as prolonging it or resurrecting it in some ways.  Thus, the Baron is not responsible for the generation of a new soul but must instead contend with a pre-existing personality.

One thing that remains consistent is the Baron's megalomania and singleminded pursuit of his quest for the source of life.  As in Hammer's earliest adaptation The Curse of Frankenstein the Baron is not above pursuing desires of the flesh.  By contemporary standards the scene where Victor Frankenstein rapes Anna Spengler is not particularly graphic, but the intent is still brutal.  I can see how the directness of the violent action would be disconcerting to those having to perform the scene, especially if the backstory of its addition to the film is to be believed.  But like the earlier incarnation's treatment of the relationship of Frankenstein and his servant Justine, Victor's rape of Anna is perfectly in keeping with a character who has no regard for the lives of others.  And it is quite in keeping with a Victor Frankenstein who is already morally bankrupt at the beginning of the film. 

The film commences with Victor lopping off the heads of unsuspecting Germans.  Thus, Frankenstein is no longer content robbing graves but instead starts off as a serial murderer.  Any pretense of a scientific desire for knowledge is utterly lost.   This is not the story of a person who means well but gets caught using bad means for a good purpose.  Here, Victor is already just running around murdering people to collect body parts.   In this film he doesn't even get close to pursuing his original task of creating life.  He's just doing what he can to crack open the addled brain of Dr. Brandt in order to get a key piece of scientific information that he needs to continue in his experiments.  It's the ultimate red herring of a plot device because as far as anyone knows Brandt's information could be a dead end (though Brandt reveals it to be useful later) and even with Brandt's secret all Frankenstein gets is another piece of the puzzle that combined with his own knowledge might (might, mind you) lead to new discoveries.  

From a structural standpoint, there's a lot to be said for this lowering of stakes.  Instead of a ridiculous world killing death ray with a ticking clock what we have is a much more scientifically realistic scenario.  One person desires something that when combined with something else could lead to another thing.  The thing itself does not have to be earth-shattering.   It is the desire for the thing that leads people to kill for it.  The possibility that the thing itself isn't worth killing people for doesn't make the story stupid, it makes the murdering much more poignant if also absurd.  (e.g. The Maltese Falcon.)  In this film Frankenstein (and the writers) seem to have forgotten why Frankenstein was experimenting to begin with.  It hardly seems to matter anymore. 

What makes this film interesting is that the moral complexity is heightened by the fact that the most sympathetic characters (Anna and Karl) are themselves ethically compromised.  Karl is stealing drugs from his job to sell on the black market.  He is doing this to help his fiancee Anna pay for the expensive healthcare for Anna's mother.  It is an obvious parallel to Frankenstein's original premise of helping cure the world of death with his experiments.   Anna and Karl are a microcosmic version of the Baron.  They are trying to save one life.  For that they need money.  Anna's boarding house and Karl's job presumably provide barely enough income to keep Anna and Karl financially secure.  Anna's mother has no doubt exhausted any savings that might have existed and so there is an income gap when it comes to providing for her care.  She could be relegated to lesser forms of care, but we are assured that anything less than what she is currently getting will put her on the road to termination but that if Karl and Anna can keep the money flowing Anna's mother will not only survive but steadily improve.   It's a real ethical conundrum.   Anna and Karl are both essentially employed full time.  Anna has her hands full keeping the boarding house in good order.  Karl is working full time at the psychiatric institution.   There are few ways for them to make enough money to make up the difference.  There are certainly some legal options open to them for some added income (grow some potatoes in the garden?)  but we're not talking about significant supplementary income.   The only other obvious (and also illegal) way of supplementing their income is for Anna or Karl to sell their own bodies to willing customers.  And it's not like these folks are living in the early 19th century version of Las Vegas where they could sell themselves to real high rollers.  We're talking middle class Germany and Anna is a respectable woman.  Even if we were to believe she could take up something less than prostitution (some form of Lutheran exotic dancing?)  it would be something considered unsavory enough to potentially jeopardize her income from the boarding house.  Anna's rent from boarders is entirely dependent on the perceived respectability of her house.

This is the part where some sort of health care reform would have been very useful.  If Anna's mother had access to some sort of national health care program her daughter would not have to become an accessory to illegal narcotic trafficking.  Insofar as we might imagine a rich tradition of charitable institutions and programs in Western Europe they seem to be of no use to Anna's mother who needs full time specialized medical care.  The private sphere has no desire to reduce the financial burden on Anna's mother and thus on Anna.  It's the triumph of the free market.  The free market has created an incentive for people to provide the specialized medical care that Anna's mother needs but don't they deserve to profit from their own investment and labor?   Of course, if Anna and Karl don't sell stolen drugs then they can't afford the expensive medical care and Anna's mother will deteriorate and die and thus provide no financial benefit to the providers of that health care.  Their customer will die. 
The free market doesn't care. 

So what's the point of this digression.  Only to point out that there is a structural villain in this story that is worse than Victor Frankenstein.  The free market system which provides no relief to people in life or death situations such as medical care (and the state which has absented itself from the issue entirely) are the villains that force Anna and Karl into the abject choice of crime in order to get money, sell off what little capital they own thus destroying their own future to save Anna's mother, or to do nothing and let Anna's mother die.  It is an impossible moral and ethical choice for them.  They make the choice that turns them into criminals (thus the least ethical choice) but it is also the most morally acceptable choice since it is the only choice that doesn't condemn someone to either death or grinding poverty.  Of course, its still not a good choice because the black market narcotics are no doubt also going to ruin some lives.   But this wouldn't have to be the case if there was a means of subsidizing those who need life-saving medical care.   It would seem to be the most moral choice.  
But in the world of this story nobody wants to provide that assistance.

Anna and Karl's ethical impurity makes them vulnerable to Victor Frankenstein's blackmail.  Victor then forces Anna to evict the other tenants of the boarding house thus making her completely dependent on, and at the mercy of, Frankenstein.  Karl is blackmailed into assisting Frankenstein in larceny and in the course of acquiring medical supplies Karl murders a security guard.   Karl is now completely compromised ethically.  His motivations no longer matter.  He is now complicit in Frankenstein's crimes.  Victor and Karl collaborate to medically murder Professor Richter, whose body is used as a vessel for Dr. Brandt's brain.   Professor Richter's brain is considered of insufficient value for Frankenstein to attempt to keep alive.

Brandt in the form of the Creature (with Richter's body) seems to be less morally or ethically compromised than any of the other characters.  Of course, Brandt was involved in the same sort of forbidden experimentation as Baron Frankenstein, but Brandt had the good grace to go completely mad upon gazing upon discovering forbidden knowledge.  Restored to his senses, Brandt makes no compromise with Frankenstein and sees the swapping of brain and body as nothing more than abomination.  (And useless abomination since Brandt's wife rejects him in the new body so he has no personal happiness to gain from Frankenstein's act.)  In fact the only use that Brandt has in Richter's body is to provide Frankenstein with the information he desires.  (It is probable that Frankenstein would dispose of Brandt once he was no longer of scientific use.)

Ella Brandt is certainly sympathetic even as the situation forces her to become something of a structural antagonist for the audience.   Since we spend most of our time with Karl and Anna they are our protagonists structurally.  We are sympathetic with Anna when she is trying to conceal Dr. Brandt's discarded body and before that when she is trying to keep Frau Brandt from discovering Frankenstein's presence.  Ella is not at fault for her disbelief when her husband comes to their house in another man's body.  It is hardly credible.  Similarly, we cannot fault her for imagining that her husband is dead when she identifies his body buried in Anna's garden.  It is what makes Brandt's attempt to communicate with her that much more poignant.

Does Anna have to die?  It depends on the reason for it in the story.  It would seem that Anna's death serves to provide Karl with a burning desire for vengeance that matches Brandt's fury thus pitting Victor against two mortal enemies and with the police closing in to boot.  Anna is inherently sympathetic.  Her motives have been pure though her actions have led her to ruin.   She has at best been an accessory to the crimes and she does not take an active hand in the worst of them.  And having already destroyed her life Frankenstein also physically violates her.  She serves as a symbol of the reason why "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed."  But why should Karl live when Anna dies?  Is this some sort of sinister gender politics?  Karl has actually murdered at least one person and has effectively allowed another to die through the removal and discarding of his brain.  Also he has stolen drugs and sold them to traffickers.  It's certainly not a case of those who have been ethically compromised not being allowed to survive.  Karl survives...alone.  It's hard to imagine what his future will be.  Jail?  Execution? Any life Karl has from here on out is going to be with some tremendous emotional baggage, that's for sure.  The same baggage (and then some) would have been there for Anna if she could have survived the stabbing.  Anna never tells Karl about the rape.  Would she have told him?  If she had, what would his reaction have been in the short term and in the long term?  If she would not have told him what would that secret have done to her in the long run?  I don't know what the motive of the writer or director was in killing off Anna, but I hope it wasn't a retrograde trope of killing off the woman who has been somehow sullied. 

I would like to note again the sheer joy to be had in the comic bungling of Police Inspector Frisch in this film and the counterpoint of the clearly long-suffering sidekick Police Doctor.  The scene with the undertaker alone is worth paying the Hammer tax and watching this film more than once. 

Cast
Baron Victor Frankenstein -- Peter Cushing
Anna Spengler -- Veronica Carlson
Dr. Karl Holst -- Simon Ward
Dr. Frederick Brandt -- George Pravda
Ella Brandt -- Maxine Audley
Professor Richter -- Freddie Jones
Inspector Frisch -- Thorley Walters
Police Doctor -- Geoffrey Bayldon
Madwoman -- Colette O'Neil
Guest (Plumber) -- Frank Middlemass
Guest (Chess Player) -- George Belbin
Guest (Pipe Smoker) -- Norman Shelley
Guest (Newspaper Reader) -- Michael Gover
Dr. Heidecke -- Jim Collier

Cinematography by Arthur Grant
Music by James Bernard 

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