Frankenstein: The True Story **** (1973, James Mason, Leonard Whiting, David McCallum, Michael Sarrazin, Jane Seymour, Nicola Pagett) – Classic Movie Review 2035

Director Jack Smight’s 1973 finds the British gay novelist Christopher Isherwood and his lifelong partner the artist Don Bachardy setting out together to re-interpret the Mary Shelley classic novel in a back-to-basics, faithful kind of way, digging deep into Shelley’s psychology for the truth of the story.

That’s great, but their main revelation is that the Monster is a handsome, sympathetic creature as played by Michael Sarrazin and that Dr Victor Frankenstein is also young and handsome in the person of Leonard Whiting. Sarrazin gives an intelligent and sympathetic portrayal of the monster and the same is true of Whiting as Frankenstein.

A great all-star cast really put their weight behind this riveting, sumptuous version of the famous horror story, with James Mason outstanding as Dr Polidori, a real-life acquaintance of the author who does not appear in her novel. Though long in the full TV mini-series version at 185 minutes, it really sustains mesmerising interest right up to the tragic conclusion.

David McCallum, Jane Seymour, Nicola Pagett, Michael Wilding (in his last film), Clarissa Kaye-Mason, Agnes Moorehead, Margaret Leighton, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Tom Baker, Dallas Adams, Julian Barnes, Arnold Diamond, David Boyce, Yootha Joyce, Norman Rossington and Peter Sallis (as the Priest) all feature. It’s lovely to savour seeing all these old actors again, especially now that so many of them are no longer with us.

It was filmed at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England. The theatrical release runs 123 minutes with the TV mini-series version at 185 minutes. The mini-series finds time for a prologue with Mason visiting Mary Shelley’s grave.

However, good though it is, Isherwood and Bachardy were unhappy with the way it turned out and published their original version of the screenplay, which differs from the final film in a number of ways. They had hoped that Jon Voight would star as Victor Frankenstein that John Boorman would direct.

The footage of the Figaro opera singer receiving applause is a shot of Susannah Foster’s curtain call from the 1943 version of The Phantom of the Opera.

After a gap of 39 years, Whiting has a role in a new film, Social Suicide, in 2015, along with Olivia Hussey, his co-star in Romeo and Juliet (1968).

Sarrazin died of cancer on April 17 2011, aged 70.

Peter Sallis died on 2 June 2017, aged 96.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2035

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