Streaming Flesh for Frankenstein Online
Lundi, septembre 6th, 2010 |
Streaming Flesh for Frankenstein Online.
Movie Title: Flesh for Frankenstein Flesh for Frankenstein is available for streaming or downloading. |
I happened to watch director Paul Morrissey’s “Blood for Dracula” before indulging in “Flesh for Frankenstein.” After having seen both films, I can unequivocally state I preferred “Blood for Dracula,” which is somewhat of a surprise considering “Flesh” was made first with “Blood” coming as almost an afterthought. By the time Morrissey and company started “Blood,” the cast and crew were exhausted from the non-stop schedule of making two films back to back. If you have little familiarity with these films, they were made under the auspices of Andy Warhol’s Factory, a time when the creator of Op Art decided to branch out into other artistic mediums. If you are like me, you cringed when you heard that Warhol had an influence on Morrissey’s films. I could never bring myself to appreciate anything associated with Andy Warhol; I always considered him and his associates talentless hacks of the lowest order. Not to worry here, though. While the titles often carry Warhol’s imprimatur, he apparently had little to do with any aspect of the production of either film.
“Flesh for Frankenstein” is a wonderful retelling of Mary Shelley’s classic 1818 novel. The good Baron Frankenstein and his sister, in this instance also his wife, bring up the kiddies in a nice, creepy castle somewhere in Europe. The hardworking Baron spends most of his time mucking around in his laboratory attempting to create a human being from scratch. Often toiling alone or with his creepy assistant Otto in tow, Frankenstein is on the verge of success when he finally puts the finishing touches on his female creature. The Baron has quite an affection for his experiment, as seen in a few extremely tasteless scenes, but he realizes he has a problem. What good is a woman without a man? Frankenstein quickly decides to build a complimentary male figure so he can have a second family completely subservient to his own whims. Why would the good Baron wish to have a second family? Perhaps because he doesn’t seem to get along with his own family all that well.
Meanwhile, Baron Frankenstein’s wife tires of her husband/brother’s heavy workload and his tendency to neglect his children. Being lonely in a big castle in Europe wears on a person, so Baroness Frankenstein turns to the hired help for consolation. Her eye falls on the newly arrived Nicholas, a beefy stable boy who promises to alleviate the Baroness’s solitude. Nicholas came into the castle after he and his friend, a Serbian planning to devote his life to the priesthood, fell victim to a heinous crime on the road outside of the castle. Nicholas woke up from the assault to discover the attackers decapitated his friend. Angered by the senseless brutality of the crime, Nicholas soon comes to suspect Baron Frankenstein and Otto had something to do with the atrocity. While the stable boy entertains the Baroness, he starts poking his nose around the castle in an effort to figure out what is going on in the Baron’s laboratory. Everything comes to a head (no pun intended) when Baron Frankenstein introduces his two creations to the family at dinner, and Nicholas notices with horror that his friend’s head rests on the neck of one of Frankenstein’s “visitors.” The servent swears to bring the terrible Frankenstein and his sick experiments to an end, which he does in a finale both cheesy and gory in its execution.
In “Blood for Dracula,” Morrissey turned Stoker’s tale of the undead into an examination of class conflict between the decaying European aristocracy and the emerging proletariat. There is a bit of that class emphasis in “Flesh for Frankenstein,” but this movie also deals with the original themes of Shelley’s story. The arrogance of man to interfere in territory strictly reserved to God, and the subsequent nightmares resulting from such arrogance, appears throughout the film. Of course, Morrissey also throws in tons of erotica, stomach curdling violence and gore, and the cheesiest dialogue and performances in the history of cinema. You haven’t lived until you see Arno Juerging (Otto), Udo Kier (Baron Frankenstein), Joe Dallesandro (Nicholas), and Monique van Vooren (Baroness Frankenstein) ham their way through the movie. Dallesandro makes no effort to hide his thick New York accent even though the film is ostensibly set in 18th century Europe. Arno Juerging and Udo Kier deliver camp dialogue at eardrum shattering levels, often with hilarious facial expressions and exaggerated motions. If you enjoy and appreciate truly outrageous performances, you will love “Flesh for Frankenstein.” I know I did, although I think “Blood for Dracula” was much funnier in terms of the campiness of Kier’s and Juerging’s performances. Further enjoyment comes from director Morrissey, who shot the film using lavish costumes, expansive set pieces, and excellent cinematography. On the surface, you would think “Flesh” is a top-notch production until you notice how sleazy Kier, Juerging, van Vooren, and Dallesandro look and act. A movie like this must have ticked off some serious film aficionados.
The Criterion Collection decided to release this film, as they did with “Blood for Dracula,” with all of the trimmings. Included on this disc are a widescreen presentation of the film, a stills gallery, and a commentary track with Kier, Morrissey, and film critic Maurice Yacowar. I didn’t listen to the commentary in its entirety because I couldn’t stand Yacowar’s nasally insights into the film. If I planned on writing and publishing something about this film I would listen to such overblown pap, but I wanted to form my own impressions of the film. Lovers of cheesy films should make “Flesh for Frankenstein” and “Blood for Dracula” required viewing. Heck, watch them as a double feature and enjoy.
One would be well-advised to heed my warning. This is one of the most violent, perverse, and laugh-out-loud (intentionally) funny versions of the Frankenstein myth. It’s also one of my favorite movies (I like it better than its sister production BLOOD FOR DRACULA, though most tend to rate that one a bit higher) and, as far as I’m concerned, the best film to come out of the Andy Warhol-Paul Morrisey collaborations of the 60s and 70s. Udo Kier is astounding as the mad Baron Frankenstein, Arno Juerging is great as his idiot assistant Otto, and Monique Van Vooren holds her own as Frankenstein’s wife-sister, whose insatiable sexual appetite is fed by hunky Joe Dallesandro. Poor Mary Shelley could never have imagined that one day her Gothic horror novel would one day evolve into something as hideous as this. But it’s all in good fun, as the Baron and Otto sew up beautiful corpses and talk science in the lab. One of the Baron’s hobbies is to make love to his female zombie (Morrisey mercifully spares us the more graphic details in this scene). He and Otto go to a bordello for the perfect male “whose overriding urges are sensual”. But - oops! - they pick the wrong stud to behead. Instead of Dallesandro, they pick his friend, an aspiring monk who really didn’t want to be at a bordello in the first place. When the Baron and Otto find that their male creature is frigid, the plot thickens. This film is NOT for people who are squeamish. The sex and violence is all of such a perverse nature that it isn’t the kind of thing you want to sit down and watch with grandma. It’s filled with campy humor and super-gory FX (imagine it as it premiered in 3-D!). But, in spite of the usual Warhol-crowd tomfoolery, there is a very real sense of quality to the proceedings. Gorgeously photographed, with a sumptuous score and fine period detail, this is a little too well-mounted to be written off as simply “a camp comedy”. Ironically, the final scene is genuinely tragic! Interesting bit of film-buff trivia: This film (as well as DRACULA) was shot at the same time, in the same place (Italy), and with much of the same crew as Polanski’s little-known sex comedy WHAT?. Polanski, who has a brief but hilarious cameo in DRACULA, let Warhol’s crowd move into his Italian villa, but their eccentricities eventually drove him off. (As he has it in his autobiography: “They were a nice enough bunch, if a bit camp…”)
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