The Frozen Dead

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Screenplay, Directed and Produced by Herbert J. Leder, for Warner Brothers. Photography by Davis Boulton; Edited by Tom Simpson; Music by Don Banks. Starring: Dana Andrews, Anna Palk, Philip Gilbert, Karel Stepanek, Kathleen Breck, Alan Tilvers, Basil Henson and Oliver MacGreevy.

Not much thought went into this Herbert J. Leder special, but the underlying premises are quite interesting. 1500 leading Nazis were frozen in 1945 and German scientist Dana is experimenting on perfecting a way of successfully reanimating them. Unfortunately, rather than develop this plot, auteur Leder decides to pastiche a whole legion of science fiction and horror genres, featuring a mad scientist and his assistant in his lab, young thing and a buddy hunting for a missing friend, keeping a head alive action, face behind the mask business, clairvoyant discovery of facts via dreams, and zombie-like abortive guinea pig folks hanging around.

Logic is wholly absent as Leder refuses to make his story credible in a record-breaking bit of cinema cliche-mongering. Leder has well-endowed Anna Palk traipsing around in a white nightgown for three separate nights; on the fourth night she sleepwalks in a pink nightgown! We never return to the original teaser plotline, and the ending is even more foolish than expected.

I saw this movie when I was perhaps 6 or 7 and have only seen bits of it on TV since, but I remember it all too well. A Nazi physician is trying to revive frozen high-ranking Germans, but they all come out brain-damaged. He needs a healthy brain to experiment on. A depraved assistant takes it upon himself to sic one of the brain-damaged revivees upon a houseguest, a college chum of the physician's unknowing daughter. This young lady is made out to be attractive, bright with a full head of hair.

When she wakes up her head has been chopped off and hooked up to life-support tubing. Her hair (and scalp and skull) have been replaced by a transparent dome so that her brain is visible. She can only speak in a whisper (a bit of artistic license there). The make-up on her face suggests a concentration-camp victim and her agony and helplessness are palpable. She is hectored by the physician trying to get her to send nerve impulses to some severed arms mounted on a wall.

Enough. I understand that horror movies require innocent people to suffer, but at least up until Night of the Living Dead, the suffering was largely off-screen or was kept brief. This film tortures its victim unspeakably. There is no hope for her.

The only things I can say to the movie's credit are that the atmosphere is well evoked and that it plays almost exactly like one of those old "Tales from the Crypt" EC comics from the 1950s. Of course, they were sadistic, too. Don't let a child (i.e. anyone under the age of 70) see this movie; it could damage them for life.

The Frozen Dead is not the zombie movie you'd probably assume, in fact it's not even what it makes itself out to be based on the cover.

A British horror film it tells the story about a Nazi doctor hidden away in England who is working on re-animating cryogenically frozen soldiers. Alas his attempts thus far have failed, though he can bring the body back the mind appears to be broken. All he needs now is a live brain to experiment on!

Shot in colour but broadcast black and white in the cinema this is an incredibly underwhelming title.

The plot appears so neutered, even though the idea behind the concept is shocking the execution is lacking to the degree that almost all impact is lost.

Poorly paced, no likeable characters and just an all round borefest The Frozen Dead demonstrates why 1966 was a dreadful year for film.

The Good:

Some interesting ideas

The Bad:

Painfully slow

Really doesn't go anywhere

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The creators did little to no research on cryogenics

A delightfully schlocky premise is given straight faced treatment here, as a Nazi scientist named Norberg (a slumming Dana Andrews) goes about the business of keeping various Nazi characters on ice and experimenting on them so that they can, one day, be resurrected successfully. A problem arises when his visiting niece Jean (the gorgeous Anna Palk) becomes VERY concerned about the sudden disappearance of her friend / traveling companion Elsa (Kathleen Breck).

While somewhat disappointing - this doesn't play out the way that some people might want it to - it's an okay forerunner to the "Nazi zombie" genre that eventually flourished. There might be too much talk and too little action for some audience members, but everything is played with admirable sincerity, and the movie isn't completely lacking in memorable imagery. Writer / producer / director Herbert J. Leder ("Pretty Boy Floyd", "It!") gives us a pitiable decapitated head on a table, and the sight of severed arms attached to a wall. Filmed in Britain, this is limited in its color palette, and in fact was apparently originally shown in theatres in black & white. It features a wonderful schlock movie score composed by Don Banks.

The cast is fun to watch, especially Andrews, as he makes an attempt at a German accent. Palk is an appealing leading lady, but Philip Gilbert is rather bland as the nice guy American scientist who becomes party to the machinations of our bad guys. Karel Stepanek and Basil Henson are entertainingly malevolent as Nazi goons. Alan Tilvern delivers a standout performance as Norbergs' crazed assistant. A young Edward Fox pops in and out of the story as one of the unfrozen dead. Breck is ultimately quite the sight, and she does earn ones' sympathies.

An amusing, diverting bit of rubbish that may be worth a look for schlock enthusiasts looking for golden oldies of decades past.

Seven out of 10.

The Nazis' finest (who, in my opinion, couldn't possibly be all that fine) are corpsicled in preparation for the future, apparently a couple of decades downstream. Dana Andrews, a top German scientist, is now trying to thaw them out, but he just gets one basket case after another; brain damage seems to be a major problem. His henchman, knowing that Andrews wants a fresh head with which to work, kills the visiting friend of his daughter, who becomes the head-in-the-box. Naturally, she's a bit angry about this state of affairs. Naturally, all the Nazis end up dead. At the end of the movie, there's the problem of what do do with the head-in-a-box. No one suggests grad school. Instead, sans lungs, she says "Bury me!" Well, that probably is better than grad school. Actually, though it's easy to make fun of this movie, it's not a bad flick.