The shocker of 1957. Nobody else at the time was making movies that gave you severed heads dipped in acid and brains and eyeballs graphically plopped into jars. Naturally, it was a huge hit (despite critics hating it) and it saved England’s ailing Hammer Films. After this, Hammer would pump out dozens more films based on venerable movie monsters. Fearing legal action from Universal Studios, Hammer deliberately made this one different from the famous 1931 Frankenstein. They even hired on a director, Terence Fisher, who claimed to have never seen the Karloff film. The main difference between this and the old Frankenstein is that this one is more about the psychosis of Frankenstein the man (a great Peter Cushing) than it is about The Monster (a perfectly lost Christoper Lee). The Monster here is basically a puppy in a lean, powerful human body. He’s a rag doll. A near cypher. If not for his wild make-up (he looks like Keely Smith meets the Toxic Avenger), you might forget him. The real monster here is Baron Frankenstein, with his mad obsession for stitching together a living creature out of cobbled-together body parts and organs.
Followed by a sequel, Revenge of Frankenstein.