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Author Topic: The Trial of Frankenstein and Frankenstein's New Brain
Marshall Crist
Master Film Handler

Posts: 300
From: San Pedro, CA USA
Registered: Oct 2008

- posted October 14, 2008 04:07 AM      Profile for Marshall Crist   Email Marshall Crist   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
These two collections of scenes from GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN were some of the last digests Castle put out before morphing into Universal 8 (along with the two HOUSE OF DRACULA cutdowns.) I won't go into full-blown reviews because I do not have source materials for accurate synopsis. Aw, heck, I'll try anyway.

TRIAL: The Frankenstein Monster and Ygor wander into town. The monster helps a girl retrieve her ball from a roof, to the horror of the townspeople. The monster is subdued, hauled off to court, and escapes. The villagers storm Castle Frankenstein, blowing it up.

BRAIN: At a medical clinic, a doctor is found dead. The killer is the Frankenstein Monster, who is incapacitated by gas. Dr. Frankenstein plans to revive his dead colleague by transplanting his brain into the monster's body. Ygor convinces the always-villainous Lionel Atwill to sneak his brain in instead! However, due to mismatched blood type, the monster becomes blind and goes wild, destroying the lab and himself in a fire.

Both digests are entertaining, and I think TRIAL is arguably the more enjoyable of the two. That said, I think NEW BRAIN sports a better editing job.

The thing that has always irked me about Castle's treatment of GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN is the need to shoehorn it into two different mini-movies. Had this come out a year or two later from U8, a single, superior 400' reel might have been created (though I doubt it.) The shifting in TRIAL of the villagers' siege on Castle Frankenstein to the end of the digest is not only unnecessary (though I get why they did it) but also more or less forces the editor's hand to eliminate two of my favorite sequences: the monster's revival and his lightning encounter in a graveyard. This same general problem would also affect HOUSE OF DRACULA and its companion digest, THE WOLFMAN'S CURE.

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Charles Phelps
Junior
Posts: 9
From: McKinney TX USA
Registered: Nov 2008

- posted November 14, 2008 06:05 AM      Profile for Charles Phelps   Author's Homepage   Email Charles Phelps   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Castle put out more new horror titles that year than in its whole history. I guess they could see the U-8 writing on the wall.

For the climax in each film, they split the feature's footage between the two movies making the final destruction scenes for each quick and choppy.

I had extra sound copies of both films and cut together my own GHOST or rather THE TRIAL OF FRANKENSTEIN'S NEW BRAIN. It is a rough edit and whenever I have the inclination, I will have to redub some of it, at least the intercut climax and the abrupt segue between the castle blowing up and Ygor and Monster coming into town.

The total combined footage is under 16 minutes, plenty of room for the monster's revival and the lightning shots for a 400'.

I did the same cutting job with the HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN digests and HOUSE OF DRACULA digest. FRANK works better than DRAC.

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Brad Kimball
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From: Highland Mills, NY USA
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- posted April 03, 2009 08:43 AM      Profile for Brad Kimball   Email Brad Kimball   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
My prints of the two "Ghost" digests are very dark, but the sound is good. Anyone else have this or is just me? My 16mm prints of these two titles are the same. I guess there was no escaping this issue - I was certain if I got them in an entirely different format I'd get lucky - nope!

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Kevin Wardle
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From: Durham - England
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- posted August 12, 2009 03:12 PM      Profile for Kevin Wardle     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Nice review! I got both copies cheap from Derann £2.99 each! And was going to edit mine together, but decided not to. I spiced FRANKENSTEIN'S NEW BRAIN with THE WOLFMAN in the end to make a Lon Chaney double bill 400ft, works a lot better that way... [Big Grin]

Kevin.

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Marshall Crist
Master Film Handler

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From: San Pedro, CA USA
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- posted January 09, 2014 10:03 PM      Profile for Marshall Crist   Email Marshall Crist   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
As a kid I had the silent versions of the two GHOST digests. Hadn't seen (or owned) them for decades, but recently obtained the sound versions and was surprised to see that "Trial" actually DID contain the monster being freed from the sulfur pit. Yay.

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Lee Mannering
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- posted January 10, 2014 07:52 AM      Profile for Lee Mannering     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Marshall The finest Standard 8 sound feature for me will always be 'Ghost of Frankenstein' and the print was really nice. Bela Lugosi was on top form as Ygor and even though much less money was spent on the making of this film than others it was always tops for me which we ran oh so regularly.

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Marshall Crist
Master Film Handler

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From: San Pedro, CA USA
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- posted January 10, 2014 06:08 PM      Profile for Marshall Crist   Email Marshall Crist   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Agreed, Lee, in terms of budget and running time, this is SON OF FRANKENSTEIN's little brother, but I like it much better.

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John Capazzo
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From: Hillside, NJ USA
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- posted January 11, 2014 05:58 PM      Profile for John Capazzo     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Brad, I've had a few dark copies of FRANKENSTEIN'S NEW BRAIN more so than TRIAL.

I agree both were nicely edited. My problem was the shortened time for each film; running well under 8 minutes when 10 years earlier, the other 25 horror digests were over 8 minutes. Critical; when you paid $16.99 each back in 1976, 1977. The same goes with the other "newer" editions along with WOLFMAN'S CURE and HOUSE OF DRACULA, Castle got more frugal with their editing.

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"the image is about 30 feet ahead of us."

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Brad Kimball
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From: Highland Mills, NY USA
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- posted January 11, 2014 09:11 PM      Profile for Brad Kimball   Email Brad Kimball   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I believe the word you're looking for is...C*H*E*A*P. You just know that this cheapness was the result of the new U/8 management making decisions about running times and such and not the original collector-minded people who ran Castle from their hearts and not their bums. By the time these were issued, I'm sure the new executives were already in place even if the Castle name was still on the box. I know the price of silver was unltimately what killed film collecting overall, but had it not happened I'm confident the new executives at U/8 would have eventually run the business into bankruptcy as a result of bad management decisions. Take titles like "The Nude Bomb" and 5-minute versions of "Emergency +4" for instance. Seriously? The TOF and FNB would have been done with the proper care for such a gem had they been released back in the early 70s. It's my fondness for the film that made me buy them and keep them, but what annoys me to this day is that this is exactly what U/8 was counting on whenever they released anything. Quality wasn't even up for discussion and it shows. Don't the Hitchcock 200'ers also run under 8 minutes each? Hmmmmmm.

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John Capazzo
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From: Hillside, NJ USA
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- posted January 12, 2014 08:26 AM      Profile for John Capazzo     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
U/8 only created a few shorts that weren't in the castle catalog; such as "scenes from.." and a couple of others, but Castle did produce TRIAL and NEW BRAIN and they were under 8 minutes. One clocked at 7:39. And they charged the same amount when you bought them. Both Hitchcock digests were well under 8 minutes also. The early monsters and most Abbott and Costello were well over 8 minutes.

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"the image is about 30 feet ahead of us."

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Brad Kimball
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From: Highland Mills, NY USA
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- posted January 12, 2014 09:27 AM      Profile for Brad Kimball   Email Brad Kimball   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Thanks, John. I always figured anything released after 1975 was branded as Castle,but really was a U/8 release. It's a shame that we had to pay the same amount for less footage. Curious that the running times were below average when there was so much great material to draw from. In addition, I always felt cheated being that the last 2-3 minutes were identical.

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John Capazzo
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- posted January 12, 2014 01:26 PM      Profile for John Capazzo     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
1977 was when Castle was bought by U8 and the only thing changed was the box. The 1976 released digests were still Castle at the time and titles such as TRIAL, NEW BRAIN and WOLFMAN'S CURE, HOUSE OF DRACULA and the two Hitchcock films. If you notice, none of those were produced in headlines. They did away with 50' headlines in 1971.

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"the image is about 30 feet ahead of us."

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Brad Kimball
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From: Highland Mills, NY USA
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- posted January 12, 2014 06:44 PM      Profile for Brad Kimball   Email Brad Kimball   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Are you sure about the headliners, John? I know I've seen headliners of Castle titles like "House Of Frankenstein" with U/8 packaging.

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Bill Phelps
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- posted January 12, 2014 07:16 PM      Profile for Bill Phelps     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I have seen them too...maybe U/8 revived a few select titles at the end of the 70's. I'm pretty sure Castle did stop making them at some point and some of the later titles didn't have headliners available.

Bill [Smile]

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Brad Kimball
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- posted January 12, 2014 11:27 PM      Profile for Brad Kimball   Email Brad Kimball   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Or perhaps they simply re-packaged old new stock that was left over. They also didn't release the two GOF and HOD cutdowns in Standard 8 either. Were "Psycho" and "Frenzy" issued in Standard 8?

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Brad Kimball
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From: Highland Mills, NY USA
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- posted January 17, 2014 09:15 AM      Profile for Brad Kimball   Email Brad Kimball   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
John, you're correct about the running times being shorter. I just looked through a 1979 U/8 catalog and all the titles from 1976 and later all run under 8 minutes. As if another 20-25 feet would have broken the bank. What a jip.

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Marshall Crist
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From: San Pedro, CA USA
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- posted February 18, 2014 12:10 AM      Profile for Marshall Crist   Email Marshall Crist   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I will soon have extra prints of TRIAL/BRAIN, with the intent of cutting them together. I'm sure it will be a very messy affair, far less elegant than some of the other Castle intercutting projects out there. I'd love to hear advice from anyone else who has tried this. I picture it breaking down like this:

TRIAL: Townspeople meet, raid Castle Frankenstein. Then cut to earlier in the digest where the monster is freed from the sulphur pit. Continue on through entire scene of Frank and Ygor in town.
BRAIN: Entire abridgment, capped off by final shot from...
TRIAL: Monster, engulfed in flames. The end.

I'm sure that last shot will cause havoc with the audio, but it seems too cool to leave out. The other major problem I foresee is the transition from the castle being assaulted (from the beginning of the film) to the monster being freed from the sulphur pit. In the TRIAL edit, they start with a shot of Ygor playing his horn. I believe this is pulled from the middle of the scene where the townspeople are discussing the "Frankenstein curse," and they may have even sourced the sound of the horn from elsewhere in the movie, because I believe that shot originally had a voice-over from the town meeting. Then there is a shot of lightning (probably from the graveyard scene) and then the monster emerging from the pit. Possibly the smoothest edit would be to go right from the explosions being set off to the monster being freed. Leaving the lightning shot in would help the transition visually, but the audio for the lightning would actually be advanced 18 frames, on the shot of Ygor playing his horn. Leaving in THAT shot would be a bit odd. It doesn't belong there, and would be a weird transition considering that moments ago Ygor was toppling parapets on the townspeople.

(Anyone following any of this?)

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Joe Taffis
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- posted February 18, 2014 05:44 PM      Profile for Joe Taffis   Email Joe Taffis   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Marshall, In case you didn't know, THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN is available full length in super 8. Since this seems to be a favorite you may want to just buy the feature [Smile]

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Joe Taffis

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Marshall Crist
Master Film Handler

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From: San Pedro, CA USA
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- posted February 18, 2014 06:14 PM      Profile for Marshall Crist   Email Marshall Crist   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Probably can't afford it, Joe, but would love to know more...

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Joe Taffis
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- posted February 18, 2014 09:18 PM      Profile for Joe Taffis   Email Joe Taffis   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I know you can get the GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN feature from CHC in the UK, but maybe Steve Osborne would have it also. I don't know the price....

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Joe Taffis

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Marshall Crist
Master Film Handler

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From: San Pedro, CA USA
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- posted March 07, 2014 02:30 PM      Profile for Marshall Crist   Email Marshall Crist   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Spent some time this morning splicing together my extra prints of "Trial" and "Brain." A couple of the edits turned out much better than I dared hope, and the other two were acceptable. Weirdest moment is at the very end--left in a shot of the villagers cheering just avoid one more audio calamity. Kind of comes out of nowhere. The villagers DO show up at the end of GHOST, but you'd never know it from the way "Brain" is edited. Plus, the shot is taken from much earlier in the film. Oh well, had fun, and I mostly like the results.

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Maurice Leakey
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- posted February 09, 2017 02:52 PM      Profile for Maurice Leakey   Email Maurice Leakey   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Frankenstein's New Brain - Castle # 1069 - Adapted from Universal's "The Ghost Of Frankenstein" 1942

200ft - black & white - picture quality A1, sound quality A1.

Starring:-
Cedric Hardwicke as Ludwig Frankenstein
Lon Chaney,Jr as The Monster
Lionel Atwill as Dr. Bohmer
Bela Lugosi as Ygor

Ygor brings the monster to Doctor Frankenstein and asks if the doctor could give the monster a new brain. The doctor proposes to use the brain of his recently deceased colleague who was a very clever man.
But Ygor arranges for his own brain to be substituted and the transfer is completed. The monster speaks and surprises the doctor by saying that his new brain as that of Ygor's.
Suddenly the monster goes blind, "what's the good of being clever but blind". This is because the blood of Ygor and the monster are incompatible.
Enraged, the monster inadvertently sets fire to the castle, and himself.

A brilliant cut-down by the Castle editors to produce a compelling 9-minute film even down to a brand new title. A film which I can thoroughly recommend.

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Maurice

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Andrew Woodcock
Film God

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From: Manchester Uk
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- posted February 09, 2017 02:54 PM      Profile for Andrew Woodcock         Edit/Delete Post 
Arghhh!! Brings back memories of spending nearly two days solid trying to sync the sound on this, as a 400 foot digest of the original Frankenstein film.

I can recite it word for word backwards to this day!

None of it would have been possible without the help of another dear collector named Hugh! [Wink]

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"C'mon Baggy..Get with the beat"

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Joe Vannicola
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- posted February 09, 2017 10:49 PM      Profile for Joe Vannicola   Email Joe Vannicola   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
In general, I've noticed that when Castle Films became Universal 8, the quality dropped on both the Super 8 and 16mm cutdowns. The rich contrast on their cutdowns was replaced by a lighter, dupe like quality. I was especially shocked when Gary Crawford showed his Super 8 400ft cutdown to A&C'S Mexican Hayride at a Cinesea and the contrast was washed out and dupey looking, unlike how Castle printed their cutdowns back in the day. Universal 8 more than likely ceased to care at this point.

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Joe

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Maurice Leakey
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- posted February 10, 2017 02:37 AM      Profile for Maurice Leakey   Email Maurice Leakey   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
In the main, Castle used 35mm originals for their 16mm and 8mm issues, this resulted in very good prints. However, when Universal took over they turned to 16mm originals with a somewhat decrease in quality.

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Maurice

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