Frankenstein Must be Destroyed
Released in 1967, Hammer’s Frankenstein Created Woman is arguably the best of the films starring Peter Cushing as the deranged baron. Two years later there followed Frankenstein Must be Destroyed, the next in the series that was a dark and disjointed piece that may qualify as one of Hammer’s strangest horrors.
Frankenstein Must be Destroyed has possibly the strongest cast ever assembled by Hammer. Cushing is supported by Simon Ward, Veronica Carlson and Maxine Audley. Freddie Jones makes the best of the post-Lee monsters, whilst Thorley Walters, Geoffrey Bayldon, George Pravda, Robert Gillespie and Windsor Davies are all excellent in supporting roles. As usual it is Cushing’s film, but here he portrays Baron Frankenstein with the nastiest of edges and resorts to the most unsavoury means to get what he wants. At times it’s uncomfortable viewing, with the image of the urbane Mr Cushing repeatedly crushed as he resorts to blackmail, rape and murder. Indeed, the scene in this film where he attacks a young woman in one of Hammer’s most disturbing, and unnecessary, scenes.
In following Frankenstein Created Woman, Frankenstein Must be Destroyed has a difficult task in standing up to the preceding classic. Where the previous film depicted the Baron pulling off the feat of tranferring a soul from one body to another, this shows him returning to more familiar pastimes of cutting and pasting body parts, in this case brains. This at least gives Hammer the chance to make this instalment the more blood curdling, and although we see much of squidgy brains being plopped into jars, there are still some marvellous moments that are purely suggestive – notably the scenes where Frankenstein asks his assistant to hold things tightly as he embarks on some noisy sawing through skulls.
Frankenstein Must be Destroyed begins by introducing the Baron at his most terrifying, Cushing apprehending an unwise burgler and garbed in a skull mask; a bizarre opening scene not properly explained but nevertheless effective. Frankenstein blackmails a young man (Simon Ward) into assisting him with his latest scheme, springing his former associate Dr Brandt (Pravda) from the local asylum and repairing his damaged brain by transplanting it into Professor Richter (Freddie Jones). Along the way mysterious events are followed by the local hapless police (Thorley Walters and Geoffrey Bayldon). The film doesn’t really kick in properly until the last act, where the new creature (Jones) escapes and attempts to return to his wife (Maxine Audley).
Both Freddie Jones and Maxine Audley are excellent, the former giving one of the most sympathetic portrayals of The Monster. Thorley Walters is also good, although it’s a shame Hammer chose not to pursue the Cushing/Wallters memorable double act from Frankenstein Created Woman. In 1969 Frankenstein Must be Destroyed ended the decade with something still recognisable from their greatest success a decade earlier. However the 70s would prove difficult times for them, with Frankenstein left to skulk in the shadows as they churned out more unmemorable Dracula vehicles, and eventually turned away from the classic monsters altogether.
I very much enjoyed my first taste of China Miéville, the highly original The City and the City. This novel was billed as an existential thriller with shades of Orwell and Kafka. There’s some truth in this, although what impressed me most was the sheer originality and imaginative scope of this book .
Set in the fictional city of Besźel, the body of a murdered woman is discovered and a detective, Inspector Tyador Borlú, is dispatched to investigate. So far very run of the mill, but Miéville cleverly drops subtle hints that this is going to be far from an ordinary whodunnit. Firstly, we begin to learn of a sister city to Besźel called Ul Qoma. Citizens of each are forbidden to associate, even to look at, one other. Failure to follow this doctrine strictly results in breach, with perpetrators investigated by a sinister body known as The Breach. Miéville begins to unravel a very complex and often challenging premise, daring the reader to keep up with him. It’s this aspect of The City and the City that I enjoyed, whenever you pause for breath this author just keeps running ahead of you with fresh ideas and twists.
The twins Besźel and Ul Qoma and the complexities that result from their division are at first reasonably acceptable. However, as Borlú tentatively begins his investigation, it slowly emerges that citizens of each are not just expected to avoid a neighbouring city. The two inhabit each other; more – they are one and the same from the eyes of a casual – or uninitiated – observer. Streets from each city intersect, even at times forcing traffic to avoid, or “unsee”, traffic belonging to the other city. The act of “unseeing” keeps the respective citizens suitably fearful and repressed. Miéville slowly unravels this ambitious conceit, creating further intrigue when Borlú’s investigation leads him to visit Ul Qoma, unseeing everything he’d previously become accustomed to.
The murder story at the heart of The City and the City is at times overblown and unnecessary, and Miéville is over determined to solve the mystery for us. What’s most impressive is the novel’s extraordinary premise and setting, this odd take on an alternative Eastern Europe, with the close of the book particularly satisfying. Torn between the twin cities, there is only one place that Borlú can go, and his final realisation of this is deftly handled.
The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim
A silence fell between us, and I felt a mounting sense of frustration. Was this what it had come to, my relationship with my own daughter? Was this all she had to say to me? For God’s sake, we had lived together for twelve years: lived together in conditions of absolute intimacy. I had changed her nappies, I had bathed her. I had played with her, read to her, and sometimes, when she got scared in the middle of the night, she had climbed into my bed and snuggled up against me. And now – after living apart for little more than six months – we were behaving towards each other almost as if we were strangers. How was this possible?
There are many sequences like this in The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim. Jonathan Coe portrays a man who grimly realises that his life has receded away to leave him desperately lonely and isolated, whilst at the same time having to come to terms with the realisation that, as a 48 year old, he doesn’t feel he’s reached adulthood at all. Coe achieves this with the perfect balance of comedy and despair revealed by his increasingly unhinged narrator. They are certainly fears I could well identify with.
We meet Maxwell Sim at a period in his life where he’s lost a lot. His wife and daughter have left him, resulting in a period of depression and inactivity. The novel begins in Australia, where he concludes an ineffective visit to his father, revealing an undeveloped and disappointing relationship between the two. During his final evening before returning home he watches a Chinese woman and her daughter at an adjacent table in a restaurant, their touching closeness to one another demonstrating to him that there are deep, mysterious relationships between human beings to be inspired by. Sim craves human contact, and the novel continues with a series of odd, often chance, encounters where his efforts to interact don’t always pull off (an early encounter results in his mugging).
Offered a job as a toothpaste salesman, Sim starts a journey to the most northern part of the British Isles. As he begins to lose touch with reality (visiting his father’s flat left unoccupied for more than twenty years, embarking on a failed romantic interlude with a childhood friend, starting a dubious dialogue with his Satnav), Sim begins to associate his plight with that of Donald Crowhurst, the lone yaughtsman who attempted to fake a round the world journey in the late 1960s. Worryingly, Crowhurst’s deception ended in madness and suicide…
Throughout the novel Coe cleverly weaves in other voices distinct to Sim’s often questionable view of life (this is man who marvels at the delights of the motorway services). An essay about Crowhurst, two stories based upon family holidays and his father’s candid journal dating from the early 1960s all offer insight into Maxwell’s make up. Sim’s methods for discovering these pieces are a little contrived, and what also let down slightly was the very, very odd ending. Sim finally meets the Chinese woman, but after offering an apparently neat resolution Coe slips unexpectedly into a different gear and finishes in a way that doesn’t gel with the rest of the book.
I’ll forgive him for that. The Privacy of Maxwell Sim is a whirlwind read which proved to me, counter to many of the recent reviews, that Coe hasn’t lost his knack for extremely well written novels. Despite appearing relatively lightweight, they tend to leave the reader reeling with the complexity of human emotion.
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