TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN (1958)
As a diligent metalhead, I've always been interested in sussing out a band's rare, unreleased material. I'm talking primarily about b-sides. Well, what we have here is a Hammer b-side. Tales of Frankenstein is a leftover that never saw the light of day. What is it? I'm glad you asked. It's an unaired pilot for a TV series that would have followed the good doctor and chronicled his various experiments. A co-production with Columbia, Tales looks and feels like one of Universal's Frankie features. It was supposed to introduce Hammer to American fright fans, but lamentably, the show was given the axe before it had a chance to win audiences over.
The episode in question is entitled "The Face in the Tombstone Mirror." Dr. Frankenstein is close to perfecting his creation, but his supply of reprobate brains is running low and he wants to curb the monster's penchant for violence. As luck would have it, he is approached by a terminally ill sculptor who begs the mad genius for help. That's the crux of the premise, but I won't give everything away. It only runs for 28 minutes, so you have no excuse not to watch it, provided you can track it down (I believe it's a special feature on the Blu-ray version of 1964's The Evil of Frankenstein). I really dug Anton Diffring's overwrought performance as Dr. Frankenstein. Bonus factoid! The monster is played by Don Megowan, who donned the creature suit on land in 1956's The Creature Walks Among Us.
I packed a lot of trivia into this capsule, but I don't want to bury the lede. Tales of Frankenstein is rad!
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