Does watching a bad transfer of a trashy Eurohorror film enhance the experience rather than detract from it? Does the darkness obscure effects that aren’t so special? Do the choppy edits cause us to blame the supplier of the print for its flaws rather than the creators of the movie? I’ve argued both ways in the past; however, after watching Lady Frankenstein (1971) on Blu-ray a mere three months after loathing it on YouTube, I’m more certain about my opinion.
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When discussing the question, we often hear the phrase, “the way a movie was originally intended to be seen.” That implies that it exists in some perfect state with glorious color and sound. The truth is that it may not. It may have been poorly filmed with built-in imperfections. Plus, if you saw a film like Lady Frankenstein at a grindhouse or drive-in theater, even during an early run, you may never have seen it looking particularly good.
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Regardless of whether a Hollywood studio intended to produce an Oscar-winning spectacle, or a low-budget auteur intended to make a quick buck at the drive-in, the fact is that a movie simply is what it is. And it is what it is at a specific point in time. I’d say that a restored Blu-ray print of a movie may sometimes be closer to its original state, but it could also be an improved version. This makes it, just like a bad YouTube version, a different movie entirely.
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Regardless of the cogitation, it felt to me like I watched two different movies, the bad and the beautiful: Lady Frankenstein on YouTube (like a public domain version you’d find on a Mill Creek 100-movie set) and Lady Frankenstein on Blu-ray, part of Severin’s Danza Macabra four-disc set. I dreaded the re-watch, thinking it would look worse. I mean, how could high definition possibly favor the atrocious makeup of the bulbous-headed monster?
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To my surprise and delight, everything about the movie, including the bulbous-headed monster, looks better on the Blu-ray version. It seems that the proliferation of the public domain version had led me to believe that the film had something to hide. Instead, it was indeed at one point in time, a pretty good movie. And if the bulbous-headed monster looks good, imagine how Tania Frankenstein (Rosalba Neri) looks! She wasn’t bad to start.
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Even Joseph Cotton delivers a better performance as Baron Frankenstein than I previously believed. (I said, “better,” but it’s still not great.) Plus, I understood plot points that previously floated by me in the mud. Until this viewing, I had no idea the monster was murdering people related to his creation. I thought he was just angry about his bulbous head and was killing the villagers indiscriminately.
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There’s more nuance in the Blu-ray version. When Tania arrives home with aspirations to rival her father’s, she’s immediately more manipulative in getting what she wants. Her actions don’t seem as sudden, and this helps the story make more sense. We caught the big brushstrokes before: she wants to put the brain of a smart old doctor, Charles Marshall (Paul Muller) into the body of a hunky young man; however, we now see the fine details that compose the painting.
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I’m not certain, and I will never watch the public domain version again to find out for sure, but I think the Blu-ray has a couple scenes that had previously been cut. Since they offer nudity, it makes sense. For example, prior to the monster killing the two fishermen, we witness him kill a naked blonde and toss her in the water. The two men then stumble upon her body when they’re fishing, and the monster sneaks up behind them to add a couple more to the death count.
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Would you even believe that these men and the other victims have names? I never caught that before. These were people that the townspeople knew and loved, adding more fuel to the fire of their torches as they ultimately storm the castle. I’m still not certain that the very ending of Lady Frankenstein, makes much sense; however, I feel that the point of what happens is figuratively clearer, just like the rest of the movie is physically clearer.
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