FROZEN ALIVE

FROZEN ALIVE (aka Der Fall X701/1964). Director: Bernard Knowles.

Dr. Frank Overton (Mark Stevens) is working on a project involving suspended animation via very low temperatures with another scientist named Helen (Marianne Koch). Overton's wife, Joan (Delphi Lawrence), is very jealous of Helen, and suspects her husband is having an affair with her, even as she carries on her own casual fling with her friend, Tony (Joachim Hansen). This leads to rather melodramatic but entertaining complications, including Overton being accused of murder. The highlight of the film is when one of the participants is frozen as an experiment, and there is some trouble bringing him out of the deep freeze -- a very suspenseful sequence. However, one problem with the climax is that Helen's actions, although her motivations are somewhat understandable, are enough to get her forever thrown out of the medical profession  -- she's a nut! The performances in this are very good, especially handsome Stevens [Fate is the Hunter], who gives a very sympathetic performance that makes it clear why the two ladies in his life are so crazy about him.  Knowles also directed Space Flight IC-1 and A Place of One's Own with James Mason. A West German production.

Verdict: Unusual romance/science-fiction melodrama with a very good cast. ***.

A PLACE OF ONE'S OWN

A PLACE OF ONE'S OWN (1945). Director: Bernard Knowles.

"There are other worlds."

James Mason often wound up in strange movies and in weird roles, and while the character he plays isn't especially weird, it's a wonder why he bothered to take the part. On the other hand, Mason is a fine actor and is generally up to any challenge, such as, in this case, playing a much older man. Henry Smedhurst (Mason) and his wife move into a house (an all too obvious model) that is supposed to be haunted. A pretty young woman, Annette (Margaret Lockwood), comes to live with them as the wife's companion, but soon she seems to fall under the spell of another woman who either committed suicide, or was murdered, in the house. Is she going loco or do spirits that can influence the living really exist? It all builds up -- if that's the word for such a dull picture -- to a real shaggy dog (or shaggy ghost) ending that may have some viewers groaning. Dulcie Gray, an Una O'Connor sound-alike, perks up the film as Sarah the maid, and Ernest Thesiger of Bride of Frankenstein makes a welcome, if all too brief, entrance late in the picture. Mason is quite good, but he was much more fun in Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Verdict: Watch House on Haunted Hill instead. **.