Tales of Frankenstein

Dr. Frankenstein has just finished rebuilding his creation, but the monster is unresponsive. He needs to try something different to make it work, perhaps some new parts. Enter a terminally ill sculptor and his assertive wife.

A Hammer Film Production. A Screen Gems Film Presentation
Columbia Pictures Corporation, Television Subsidiary
The Award Theater
Copyright Screen Gems Inc. All Rights Reserved
Westrex Recording System

All characters and incidents portrayed, and the names used herewith are fictitious and the similarity to any names, characters or history of any person is entirely accidental and unintentional.

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Cast & Crew


Crew	Name	Age at Release	Birth	Death	Age	Hammer Credits	Uncredited	Total Hammer
Art Director	Carl Anderson	89	13 Jun 1903	22 Sep 1989	86	1		1
Assistant Director	Floyd Joyer	78	15 Sep 1914	17 Oct 1994	80	1		1
Associate Producer	Curt Siodmak	90	10 Aug 1902	2 Sep 2000	98	3		3
Director	Curt Siodmak	90	10 Aug 1902	2 Sep 2000	98	3		3
Director of Photography	Gert Andersen A.S.C.	86	1907	26 Dec 1982	75	1		1
Film Editor	Tony Di Marco	75	14 May 1917	5 Jan 2000	82	1		1
Gaffer	Steve Birtles	78	12 Nov 1914	2003	88	14	15	29
Hair Styles	Helen Hunt	90	18 Oct 1902	7 Apr 1996	93	1		1
Make-up	Clay Campbell A.S.C.	91	21 May 1901	1 Jun 1989	88	1		1
Produced by	https://www.hammer-graveyard.org.uk/michael-carreras/#	65	21 Dec 1927	19 Apr 1994	66	98	9	107
Production Assistant	Seymour Friedman	75	17 Aug 1917	2 Apr 2003	85	2		2
Prop Man	Clarance Peet	88	13 Aug 1904	30 Mar 2001	96		1	1
Set Decorator	James M. Crowe	75	19 Dec 1917	20 Jun 1969	51	1		1
Story by	Curt Siodmak	90	10 Aug 1902	2 Sep 2000	98	3		3
Supervising Editor	Richard Fantl A.S.C.	89	21 Oct 1903	29 Mar 1961	57	1		1
Teleplay	Catherine Kuttner	81	24 Jan 1911	4 Apr 1987	76	1		1
Teleplay	Henry Kuttner	77	7 Apr 1915	4 Feb 1958	42	1		1
Writer	Jerome Bixby	69	11 Jan 1923	23 Apr 1998	75		1	1

Cast	Name	Age at Release	Birth	Death	Age	Hammer Credits	Uncredited	Total Hammer
Baron von Frankenstein	Anton Diffring	76	20 Oct 1916	19 May 1989	72	3		3
Christine Halpert	Helen Westcott	65	1 Jan 1928	17 Mar 1998	70	1		1
Doctor	Raymond Greenleaf	100	27 Nov 1892	29 Oct 1963	70	1		1
Gottfried Cemetery Caretaker	Peter Brocco	89	16 Jan 1903	20 Dec 1992	89	1		1
Inner Sanctum	David Hoffman	88	2 Feb 1904	19 Jun 1961	57		1	1
Max Halpert	Richard Bull	68	26 Jun 1924	3 Feb 2014	89	1		1
Police Chief	Sydney Mason	87	27 Jun 1905	11 Apr 1976	70	1		1
The Monster	Don Megowan	70	24 May 1922	26 Jun 1981	59	1		1
Wilhelm	Ludwig Stossel	109	12 Feb 1883	29 Jan 1973	89	1		1

Footnotes

Tales of Frankenstein is an unsold TV pilot filmed in 1958. It was a co-production of Hammer Film Productions and Columbia Pictures. The film is a mixture of elements from both the Hammer and Universal Pictures versions of Frankenstein. The episode title, which does not appear onscreen, is “The Face in the Tombstone Mirror”.

Although the series was never produced, Anthony Hinds commissioned several scripts that provided Hammer with material for their later Frankenstein films. In one story by A.R. Rawlinson, Frankenstein created a beautiful woman with no soul (Frankenstein Created Woman); in another by Peter Bryan, Frankenstein hires a mystic to hypnotize the Monster (The Evil of Frankenstein).

Hammer and Columbia planned to produce a series of 26 episodes, with each studio handling 13 episodes. The producers wanted the series to be about Baron Frankenstein and his experiments. Director Curt Siodmak argued that “You cannot carry a whole show with nothing but Frankenstein stories”.

Michael Carreras intended the series to introduce Hammer to America, and wanted to give it a good chance. He enlisted Jimmy Sangster, fresh off The Revenge of Frankenstein, to write a pilot, “The Single Minded Black-Mailer”. Other writers provided five more scripts depicting an amoral Baron Frankenstein, in the Hammer style.

Friction developed between the two studios because Columbia at that time held the TV rights to the Universal Monsters film series through their Shock Theater film package, and wanted to use that version of Frankenstein. Hammer, on the other hand, wanted to base the series on their own – The Curse of Frankenstein. The only real input Hammer had was in the choice of Anton Diffring, who played Frankenstein very much like Peter Cushing. Diffring went on to star in Hammer’s The Man Who Could Cheat Death the following year.

Since the series was intended for an American audience, Columbia rejected all six of Hammer’s scripts in favour of one written in-house. The film was co-written by Henry Kuttner and his wife C.L. Moore with Curt Siodmak, a veteran of Universal horror films including The Wolf Man, who also directed. Another script, “Frankenstein meets Dr. Varno”, was written by Jerome Bixby.

The Monster was the flat-headed Universal Pictures version popularised by Boris Karloff, and was played by Don Megowan.

Disgusted with their lack of input, Carreras went back to England, leaving Anthony Hinds to represent Hammer. Soon, he also gave up.

There are two discrepancies in the credits at the end. The characters clearly identified as Paul and Christina Halpert in the film are listed as Max and Christine Halpert in the credits.

1958 TV Pilot

Cast & Crew

Footnotes

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