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For those who haven't seen this 1973 Dan Curtis production, it's worth watching. It's shot on video, co-stars John Karlen, features many familiar music cues by Robert Cobert and a script co-written by Sam Hall.
The ending quotes both DCs Jekyll and Hyde and HODS. You'll know when you see it. :o
Of course, this is according to my TV Guide. It's listed in a 3 hr 20 min time slot at 9PM PT. The program is a just over two hours, so expect commercial breaks.
D
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Thanks for the info Darren. I checked my TV guide and it airs here in the Chicagoland area at 11:30 pm. Bob
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Thanks for the heads up, Darren. In Orlando, it's scheduled for 12:25 a.m. (I have it on VHS, so I probably won't watch--but it's well worth watching, esp. for those who've never seen it.)
I see that MPI is releasing a 4-disc Dan Curtis Macabre DVD collection at the end of August, with DRACULA, JEKYLL/HYDE, DORIAN GRAY and TURN OF THE SCREW--but no FRANKENSTEIN.
Any idea why no FRANKENSTEIN?
Brian
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I could not find it in my tv guide. :( . I'll set my clock for 12:30 to see if it is on the same time as Orlando.
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BTW- KLS is in "Turn Of The Screw" as the ghost of Miss Jessel. This is ironic, considering how she played the Lynn Redgrave part of the confused governess TWICE on DS- first with the Quentin/Beth story, then the Daphne Gerard story! Also, John Karlen is in the DC production of "Frankenstein", which had a SAM HALL teleplay.
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RATS!! It's the NBC-TV movie with Leonard Whiting and Michael Sarrazin as the creature! Oh well, at least there's Jane Seymour as the "Eve" of the story.
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Seems odd that AMC had a promo for "Frankenstein" starring Robert Foxworth, right before "Frankenstein: The True Story" was broadcast. Obviously, someone at the network got their wires crossed!
In thinking about this, did both movies come out at about the same time? I remember "The True Story" broadcast on NBC as a 2 part special. Was the DC version part of an ABC Late Night special? Somehow, I recall that it aired in the middle of the night.
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I think it was an insidious plot concocted by AMC as part of the Enron Scandal and the Masonic involvement in trying to impose the New World Order. Either that, or somebody at AMC just goofed. Anyway, the NBC miniseries was a decent production in and of itself, but I didn't stay up to watch it regardless. We'll just hafta keep our eyes peeled to see if AMC does air the DC version.
Gerard
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Actually, I was glad to see FRANKENSTEIN - THE TRUE STORY because I haven't seen it since its first airing, and I remembered it as being pretty decent. I watched the first hour of it and recorded the rest, since, by then, my old bones were growing weary. Will probably watch the rest of it today. The part I did watch matches my memory exactly; looking forward to seeing more.
Still, it's annoying as hell that AMC runs an entirely different movie from what they advertise -- and even their promo 30 seconds before the start of the film was for the DC version. It makes it a bit difficult to trust their program schedule. They did the same thing a few months ago with GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA; instead of the superior 1964 version, they ran the newer, 1992 G VS. M. A bit easier to understand, given the titles, but still -- one would hope their programmers would do a spot of double-checking before they list something on their schedule.
[shadow=black,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]
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After programming our VCR's(one tape for me and one for a friend) to watch John Karlen in Frankenstein, what do I see :-/ but James Mason and a host of other distinguished British actors/actresses.
So, I went over to AMC/tv.com and sent an email to their complaint department. I may or may not get an answer but at least I feel better.
Now, off to church to repent my sins with no gloves or hat! ;D
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So, I went over to AMC/tv.com and sent an email to their complaint department. I may or may not get an answer but at least I feel better.
I've sent a number of emails to AMC-TV for various reasons, and it usually takes a while, but I've always received a personal response addressing the issue.
[shadow=black,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]
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Too bad AMC goofed in their programming announcements, but FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY is more than a fair trade-off, and I hope some of you stuck with it.
DC's FRANKENSTEIN is interesting and has a moment or two, but F:TTS is a rich, brilliant work, far surpassing the other in my opinion. The cast is terrific and James Mason is deliciously evil. The full-length version has never been available on video (only a cut down one) and screens rarely.
DC's FRANKENSTEIN was a two-parter and I believe it aired that way originally and was also rerun in one part for late night TV.
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Just finished watching the tape from last nite, and DC or no, I thought it was really good! [I did keep waiting for Karlen, tho] - but the whole cast of this one was amazing - A Man from UNCLE, a Dr. Who, A Lady Doctor [LOVED the wet t-shirt scenes![evilg]], a Petofi Imitator, two crazy comedy relief ladies [loved the little bo-peep scene!], the old dude from 'Give My Regards To Broad Street' [I'm SURE you all saw that [rollb]]a scene from Titanic, lots of Acid, A Mortica Addams look-a-like, and a Border Collie! That 'walk thru the cemetary' intro was pretty weird! [And almost as many laughs as The Abbott and Costello version on this morning! - DC shoulda used a touch of animation on DS!]
Thanks for the 'false alarm' anyway - I don't think I had ever seen that before!
Figaro!
Ringo [jester]
ps - the dude that was the AMC 'host' before and after the movie used to be the host on a show called 'Super Collectors' and he was actually broadcasting from my house one day, to show my Beatles collection! [see also Tour Ringo's Pad thread....]
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Frankenstein: the true story instantly became one of my favorite movies when it first aired, and I was thrilled with this opportunity to see it again. I know I saw a rebroadcast at least once in the mid 70s, but it's close to 30 years since I last got to see it.
It is one of those projects that is ripe for restoration on DVD. A truncated 2 hour version was shown in European theatres. It is clear that there was even more in the original director's cut above and beyond the 3 hour version that AMC showed on Sat.
Curiously, Leonard Whiting stopped acting almost immediately after completing this picture. I wonder why? His gorgeous nude scene in Romeo and Juliet remains a benchmark for luscious male pulchritude in the cinema (plus, I thought he was a wonderfully expressive actor, both as Romeo and as Victor Frankenstein).
Gothick
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Actually, I was glad to see FRANKENSTEIN - THE TRUE STORY because I haven't seen it since its first airing, and I remembered it as being pretty decent. I watched the first hour of it and recorded the rest, since, by then, my old bones were growing weary. Will probably watch the rest of it today. The part I did watch matches my memory exactly; looking forward to seeing more.
Still, it's annoying as hell that AMC runs an entirely different movie from what they advertise -- and even their promo 30 seconds before the start of the film was for the DC version. It makes it a bit difficult to trust their program schedule. They did the same thing a few months ago with GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA; instead of the superior 1964 version, they ran the newer, 1992 G VS. M. A bit easier to understand, given the titles, but still -- one would hope their programmers would do a spot of double-checking before they list something on their schedule.
[shadow=black,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]
The '64 "Godzilla vs. Mothra" was the very first Godzilla movie I saw, and from that moment I was hooked on the jolly green giant stomping away at plastic duplicates of Tokyo and other sundry Japanese metropolises. When I saw the '64 film, however, it was then-named "Godzilla vs. the Thing".
I prefer my Godzilla as he was in those earlier films (Godzilla, King of the Monsters; Gigantis the Fire Monster; King Kong vs. Godzilla; Godzilla vs. Mothra) when he was evil. I never cared much for him when he became a hero, saving Japanese children (with the help of his smoke-ring-blowing son Minya [aka Tadzilla]; where the heck was the Mrs.?) from other rubber-suited creatures of earth and sky. The one positive thing about his 1990's resurrection was that they made him evil again.
I had the chance to see the original, first production, "Gojira" (Godzilla's name in Japanese), sans Perry Mason, with all the uncut scenes and subtitles at a film festival. Even though the Raymond Burr Americanized version is truly eerie and powerful, it pales in comparison to the authentic thing, an around-three-hour epic.
Gerard
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True, the Japanese editions of the Godzilla films are heads (and tails?) above their dubbed, cut American versions.
The original Gojira is terrific, but the original version runs 97mins not three hours. Even so, it's 20-30 mins longer than the US release, if you subtract the newly shot Raymond Burr footage.
Ever seen the Japanese cut of GODZILLA 98 (Gojira, 1984)? That one is much, much better as well with all of the stupid comic relief and Raymond Burr stuff gone. Though Burr does a sincere job, the intent of the rest of the scenes is idiotic.
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but the original version runs 97mins not three hours.
I'm starting to see a pattern here!
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Curiously, Leonard Whiting stopped acting almost immediately after completing this picture. I wonder why? His gorgeous nude scene in Romeo and Juliet remains a benchmark for luscious male pulchritude in the cinema (plus, I thought he was a wonderfully expressive actor, both as Romeo and as Victor Frankenstein).
i was curious about why he left acting too. was it something we said? i hope not because it isn't frequent enough that we get such marvelous examples of not only a marvelous actor but one so gorgeous as well.
i also vaguely remember the nbc frankenstein and recall it to be really good.
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The original Gojira is terrific, but the original version runs 97mins not three hours. Even so, it's 20-30 mins longer than the US release, if you subtract the newly shot Raymond Burr footage.
Ever seen the Japanese cut of GODZILLA 98 (Gojira, 1984)? That one is much, much better as well with all of the stupid comic relief and Raymond Burr stuff gone. Though Burr does a sincere job, the intent of the rest of the scenes is idiotic.
Yah, I have copies of the original Japanese versions of all the Toho films. The original GOJIRA is an incredibly powerful film. Last year at the Godzilla fest in Chicago, the con rented out the nearby cinema, and showed it, as well as a couple of other G films, on the big screen, which was a major treat.
The one film that Americanization killed more than any other was KING KONG VS GODZILLA. The original is absolutely hysterical, with lots of tongue-in-cheek humor and obviously superb acting. All of this is lost in the dubbing and needless editing of scenes. Plus, the original score by Akira Ifukube, which was mostly deleted for U.S. release, is one of his best.
[shadow=red,left,300]--Mark[/shadow]
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I wasn't planning to tune in to AMC Saturday night since I already own the Dan Curtis "Frankenstein" on video. And, sorry to say, I thought it was so awful I couldn't make it all the way through ... (Not as bad as the Branagh version, but that's not saying much. Not to mention that it bore little resemblance to the novel by the same name by a writer known as Mary Shelley!)
Nevertheless, since I happened to be home late Saturday night, I turned on the TV just as the movie was coming on and I immediately saw that it wasn't the Dan Curtis version but rather "Frankenstein: The True Story." I remember being horribly disappointed when this version was produced on TV when I was a boy, since I had already read the novel (precocious reader that I was) and this TV movie with Leonard Whiting and Michael Sarrazin bore no resemblance to Mary Shelley's novel.
But I remember having read some rave comments about this version on the Internet Movie Database and at amazon.com and elsewhere, so I decided to shove a blank tape into the VCR ... very annoyed that I didn't know it was this version in advance, since the resulting tape is missing the first couple of minutes. :( Nothing irritates me more than having the beginning (or ending) cut off on my taping of a movie.
I was able to watch most of "Frankenstein: The True Story" (and managed to find a second blank tape to put in during the commercial break), and although it had little to do with Mary Shelley's novel, I did find this an intriguing and extremely well-produced version. It was such a hoot to see such a fantastic cast -- John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson? -- Those names meant nothing to me when I was 11 years old. (Though of course I knew Agnes Moorhead from "Bewitched.")
I truly appreciated this version in a way that I did not when I was 11 (or whatever). As one of the reviewers on one of the boards I mentioned wrote, this version does capture Mary Shelley's theme about responsibility (which some have interpreted as a subtle critique of her husband's and Byron's free-wheeling philosophy of life).
I especially loved Jane Seymour as the wicked Prima! It will be interesting to compare this interpretation of "Eve" with Marie Wallace's upcoming role on DS, which I haven't seen before. (Of course, in MS's novel, "Eve" is never brought to life.)
The only faithful movie version of the book is the Swedish-Irish co-production "Victor Frankenstein", a.k.a. "Terror of Frankenstein" made by Calvin Floyd, which I have written about previously.
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I checked AMC's website to see if they plan to re-air "Frankenstein: The True Story" (would like to re-tape and capture the first couple of minutes that I missed -- see above).
"Frankenstein: The True Story" isn't even in their database!
They do list "Frankenstein" with the year "1973" and when you click on "synopsis," the information provided is for the Dan Curtis version with Robert Foxworth, Susan Strasberg, and John Karlen.