Screenwriter behind Hammer films such as Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein
In 1957, Hammer Films revived gothic horror – in abeyance in a decade that offered nuclear or cosmic horrors which made the classic monsters seem tame – with The Curse of Frankenstein, directed by Terence Fisher and starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. To hear him tell it, Jimmy Sangster, who has died aged 83, wrote the script because no one else would, and simply typed it out and turned it in.
Yet Sangster came up with a new story – owing as little to Mary Shelley's novel as to James Whale's earlier film – and a radical depiction of Frankenstein as a determined, charming yet corrupt dandy who could still chill in an era of nuclear proliferation. Sexually amoral (he uses his monster to murder the maid he has impregnated), rigidly dividing his life (making a bloody hash in the laboratory...
In 1957, Hammer Films revived gothic horror – in abeyance in a decade that offered nuclear or cosmic horrors which made the classic monsters seem tame – with The Curse of Frankenstein, directed by Terence Fisher and starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. To hear him tell it, Jimmy Sangster, who has died aged 83, wrote the script because no one else would, and simply typed it out and turned it in.
Yet Sangster came up with a new story – owing as little to Mary Shelley's novel as to James Whale's earlier film – and a radical depiction of Frankenstein as a determined, charming yet corrupt dandy who could still chill in an era of nuclear proliferation. Sexually amoral (he uses his monster to murder the maid he has impregnated), rigidly dividing his life (making a bloody hash in the laboratory...
- 8/21/2011
- by Kim Newman
- The Guardian - Film News
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