The Man Who Could Cheat Death

In 1890, in Paris, the artist Dr. Georges Bonnet (Anton Diffring) invites a group of friends for a private exposition of his new sculpture. Among the guests are Dr. Pierre Gerrard (Christopher Lee) and his companion Janine Du Bois (Hazel Court) that had an affair with Dr. Bonnet ten years ago in Italy. When they see each other, their love rekindle. However Dr. Bonnet has a dark secret since he is 104 years old and needs to have a gland transplanted every ten years to keep his youth. But his partner and friend Dr. Ludwig Weiss (Arnold Marle) had a stroke in Switzerland and cannot perform the surgery.

"The Man Who Could Cheat Death" is a combination of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray", with a doctor that discovers a means to stay young with thirty and something years. This Hammer production has wonderful sets, great story and excellent cast. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Homem que Enganou a Morte" ("The Man Who Cheated Death")

A good thriller in the old-style classic sense, beautifully filmed in color by England's Hammer company. "The Man Who Could Cheat Death" is somewhat static near the beginning and almost stage play in its construction, but that is OK as it is well acted by a fine ensemble cast.

Anton Diffring offers a nervous-energy-driven, neurotically sinister presence from the very beginning of the film. He provides the requisite menace that is essential to his role. Beautiful Hazel Court, Diffring, Christopher Lee and others contribute elegant, psychologically interesting characterizations that are rendered within an uncluttered thriller format.

I can't emphasize enough how thoroughly this film epitomizes the unique Hammer production values, decor, color scheme and general style, while also effectively evoking foggy turn-of-the-century nighttime Paris streets. Despite the Paris locale, it is distinctively Hammer. Laboratories, scalpels, weird medicines, fog, and all the classic elements are here. Fans of the genre and of the era in thriller filmmaking should not miss it.

The Man Who Could Cheat Death is directed by Terence Fisher and adapted to screenplay by Jimmy Sangster from the Barré Lyndon play The Man in Half Moon Street. It stars Anton Diffring, Hazel Court, Christopher Lee, Arnold Marlé, Francis de Wolff and Delphi Lawrence. Out of Hammer Film Productions, music is by Richard Rodney Bennett and Technicolor photography by Jack Asher.

Paris 1890 and sculptor Georges Bonnet (Diffring) has perfected a way to halt the aging process. Trouble is that it involves murdering young women so as to extract their parathyroid gland to formulate his eternal life elixir.

Disappointingly weak Hammer Horror that would be near unwatchable were it not for the efforts of Asher, Fisher and Bernard Robinson (production design). The source story is made to measure for Hammer, where berserker science mixes with Gothic murder tones, all the ingredients are there for a lively fusion of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with The Picture of Dorian Gray. But the film is more concerned with much talking and posturing, thinking that sci-fi babble and moral quandaries are going to keep things interesting. We of course want some meat and reasoning for main characters to impact on the plotting, but using up an hour for it, in a film that only runs an hour and twenty minutes, leaves very little room for thrills and drama. It also demands that the finale be explosive, a whirlwind of horror revelations and biting comeuppance, sadly the ending we get is rather a damp squib.

Things aren't helped by the casting of Diffring, who overacts far to often, or that Lee is underwritten and firmly disinterested in making the thin characterisation work. Court looks ravishing and gives the film its best performance, but she is also hindered by a bare bones script from the usually excellent Sangster. The story just plods to its inevitable conclusion, the screenplay never daring to veer away from the safe formula road. While much of the detective work from de Wolff's Inspector LeGris leaves a great deal to be desired. On the plus side it looks real nice, a triumph over low budget restrictions, the minimal sets dressed in period splendour, the colour sizzling and Fisher uses wide shots to make certain scenes that are played out on tiny sets actually look expansive.

Devoid of up-tempo terror and finishing on a whimper, this is very much average Hammer and not easily recommended to the horror faithful. 5/10

This is among the first Hammer Horrors I watched but, after checking it out twice on Italian TV as a kid (once as part of a late-night horror programme called "Zio Tibia Horror Picture Show" featuring a couple of amiably grotesque puppets, which is how I first caught up with the likes of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN {1935} and THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN {1942}!), the film seems to have dropped off the radar completely in my neck of the woods; finally, it was recently released on R1 DVD by Legend Films since this was the only title from the legendary British company to be distributed by Paramount. It is actually the third version of Barre' Lyndon's play "The Man In Half Moon Street", first filmed in Hollywood in 1943 (albeit only released a couple of years later!) and again for British TV in which Anton Diffring, the star here, actually originated his role (for whatever reason, the name of the protagonist changes from one version to the other!); even so, Hammer's then top leading man Peter Cushing was supposed to play the part but, thankfully, saner minds prevailed as I am not sure he would have been ideal as a ladies' man (the heroine, then, is future "Queen Of Horror" Hazel Court in her last of 2 films for Hammer). It is interesting to have Hammer still adapting stuff from TV at this point, even after they hit the jackpot with reinventing the classic Gothic literary tales!

Anyway, having just watched the earlier movie, it is quite clear which is the superior version since Jimmy Sangster's excellent script deals far more thoroughly with the themes inherent in Lyndon's source…which, as mentioned in my review of the original, draws quite a bit from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" – though, this being Hammer, the horror aspect (aided by Fisher's typically full-blooded handling and Diffring's intense characterization) is a lot more pronounced. That said, Diffring is ably supported by Christopher Lee (who, despite having attained star status thanks to Hammer, generously accepted a supporting and heroic role this time around: oddly enough, his doctor character here shares his name with another one he would play in the later, similarly Sangster-scripted Hammer chiller TASTE OF FEAR {1961}!) and Arnold Marle' (who also reprised his role from the TV version as Diffring's elderly associate).

Being a relatively early genre effort by the company, the color palette is very handsome, effectively rendering both the late 19th century Parisian setting and the moments of pure horror, notably the greenish hue emitted by the boiling flask which holds Diffring's life-sustaining serum. Incidentally, while the protagonist of the 1945 version was really a 90-year old, here he is made to be 104 (and it is amusing to watch Diffring try to convince Lee that he is actually a good 15 years older than the stroke-stricken Marle'); again, the protagonist has a dual career as an artist (though he is a sculptor now rather than a painter) but, inconveniently, his models all fall for him and have to be disposed of (which is one of the clues the Police – represented by Francis De Wolff – eventually follow). Here, too, the gland operation is good for a whole decade but, in this case, we are better able to accept the fact that in the interim he tries to rebuild his life, not to mention that when the effect begins to dissipate and Marle' has still not turned up to perform the life-saving operation, he is forced to kill and kill again because the gland withers after a few days!

Among the number of differences between the two movie versions one finds that, in the 1945 movie, when the protagonist's colleague is unable to operate, he has to rely on a young man he saves from suicide and who just happens to be a medical student (after having gone through a list of disgraced members of the profession), whereas here it is Lee who gets asked (who is in love with Court herself, naturally) but initially refuses (so that Diffring has to refer to an alcoholic doctor and, bafflingly, an oculist!). Here, too, he does operate eventually but he does not perform the gland transplant, which obviously proves Diffring's undoing; the latter comeuppance is quite messy (much more horrific, in fact, than the original's) – involving both the age reversal (featuring great make-up effects by Roy Ashton) and his being set on fire by a model he had kept imprisoned (and deformed, since apparently his skin becomes abrasive as the effects of the drug fade!) after she discovered his secret.

Diffring would follow this with an even more notorious genre outing, CIRCUS OF HORRORS (1960), but he never quite became a star (being too often relegated to playing Nazi officials in Hollywood WWII epics); even so, later horror titles of his include MARK OF THE DEVIL PART 2 (1973; which I will be getting to presently), THE BEAST MUST DIE (1974; for Hammer rival Amicus and with Peter Cushing!) and Jess Franco's FACELESS (1987; which also sees him involved in unethical operations spiced with a series of murders). Incidentally, following these viewings, I am also in the process of acquiring Ruggero Deodato's belated giallo PHANTOM OF DEATH (1988) starring Michael York, Edwige Fenech and Donald Pleasance in view of its apparent thematic similarity to the Barre' Lyndon play.

THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH (the Hammer Films remake of 1945's THE MAN IN HALF MOON STREET, based on the play by Barre' Lyndon) seems to be a forgotten fantasy-thriller. Often compared with Oscar Wilde's PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, this film rarely seems to get the same airplay on late night TV or on any of the "Shock Theatre" programs that many of the other Hammer horror hits did, and has yet to receive a home video release. With so much of the Hammer library now out on DVD, and since Paramount handled Hammer's distribution for this (as well as having produced the 1945 original), it would be nice to see the two films released to DVD as a double feature. (Much like the HOUSE OF WAX/MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM or the Frederic March and Spencer Tracy versions of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE.)