Made and set in Berlin under a veteran British director with a largely German cast and crew (the stern presence of Walter Rilla is always a sure sign during this period that we're watching an Anglo-German co-production) and a characteristically noisy Germanic jazz score; the title 'Frozen Alive' suggests an early film on the then hot (if you'll pardon the expression) subject of cryogenics: a word never actually used in the film itself. Unfortunately it proves disconcertingly similar to the previous year's 'The Mind Benders' (1963), which showed far less interest in the potentially fascinating subject of sensory deprivation than - as with this film - the marital problems of the scientist at the centre of the narrative.
Delphi Lawrence is, however, a blast as Dr.Overton's glossy blonde wife - supposedly a famous fashion journalist, and with distinctly Germanic dress sense - first seen pouring herself the first of many, many drinks with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth as she also pours out her heart to her long-suffering German lover (Joachim Hansen). The film's production values, photography and pacing feel more like a TV production of the period; and even at just 75 minutes it feels wearisomely drawn out (such as a bizarrely irrelevant sequence in a bar with Joan Overton and her lover watching a fire-eater, of all things). Occasionally the film cuts back and forth between Overton in his lab and his wife's drunken maunderings as if something sufficiently dramatic is happening that actually calls for such emphatic editing, and even Ms. Lawrence begins to outstay her welcome when she starts waving her lover's gun about as if it's a toy - although it results in a wonderful death scene; both ludicrous and then moving as it finally sinks in on the poor woman just how completely she's screwed up...
After meandering for so long, the film then suddenly rushes headlong towards an extremely abrupt conclusion - as if director Bernard Knowles has finally realised that if it's going to be sold as science fiction, 'Frozen Alive' needs some laboratory footage to include in the trailer and on the posters. Wolfgang Lukschy (reunited with his recent 'Fistful of Dollars' co-star Marianne Koch), as Inspector Prenton goes out of his way to be as boorish and unprofessional as only the detective in a German crime film can be (while his sidekick provides one of the film's occasional flashes of mellow humour by actually showing an interest in what the scientists are getting up to and ruefully pleading with his boss "Can't I watch, sir?" when instructed to watch the door while Overton is defrosted).
Apart from Ms. Lawrence, the other Brit in the film is the veteran actor John Longden as the avuncular Professor Hubbard, making his final film appearance 35 years after starring in Hitchcock's 'Blackmail' (1929).
