THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH (1959)

Director: Terence Fisher

Writers: Jimmy Sangster adapting Barré Lyndon’s play The Man in Half Moon Street

Producer: Michael Carreras

Cast: Anton Diffring, Hazel Court, Christopher Lee, Arnold Marlé, Delphi Lawrence, Francis de Wolff, (and uncredited cast) Renee Cunliffe, Denis Shaw, John Harrison, Michael Ripper, Marie Burke, Gerda Larsen, Charles Lloyd-Pack, Ronald Adam, Ian Hewitson, Louis Matto, Frederick Rawlings, Barry Shawzin, Lockwood West, Fred Stroud, John Timberlake, Middleton Woods 

In the year 1890, Dr. Georges Bonnet (Anton Diffring) operates a Paris, France medical clinic. He has maintained his youth by receiving a parathyroid gland transplant every ten years. This secret process has allowed Bonnet to reach the age of 104 years, while still appearing to be in his mid-thirties. Bonnet will resort to murder to obtain the needed gland when fresh cadavers are unavailable. His elderly colleague, Dr. Ludwig Weiss (Arnold Marlé), assisted Bonnet in the discovery of this eternal youth technique. For decades Weiss has been secretly performing the periodic transplant operations on Bonnet. A recent stroke has rendered Weiss’ right hand useless for performing surgery. As his ten-year cycle is about to expire, Bonnet resorts to increasingly desperate means to prolong his life. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

In the 1950s Britain’s Hammer Film Productions had achieved international success revisiting the classic horror characters that America’s Universal Pictures had made icons in the ’30s and ’40s. Hammer stressed Gothic romanticism by usually placing their trend-setting films in 19th-century Europe. These movies were a refreshing contrast to the contemporary, sci-fi frights that had become the predominant form of ’50s film horror. 

For The Man Who Could Cheat Death, the established Hammer style remained as they found a new source for adaptation. This film was based on the Barré Lyndon play The Man in Half Moon Street, which had earlier been made into a 1945 American film by Paramount Pictures. Frequent Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster wrote the screenplay and their go-to-guy for Gothic horror, Terence Fisher, directed. 

Mad science movies are usually morality plays about the nasty consequences of man playing God. But beyond the often-evil means employed by the scientist and his or her comeuppance, these films are just as fixated on thrills and chills as other stories about vampires, werewolves, and other things that go bump in the night. In The Man Who Could Cheat Death, the moral considerations of the mad science involved and its consequences are elaborated upon more than in the usual Frankenstein-styled horror film. 

It must be said that this film has earned its “talky” reputation. It spends plenty of time with its lead character, Dr. Georges Bonnet, having to secretly arrange for his eternal youth maintenance and trying to convince his now-elderly accomplice, Dr. Ludwig Weiss, to continue to assist him. That leads to plenty of drawing room drama and discussion. During these scenes the aforementioned considerations of morality and consequences are expressed. That stuff only registers if delivered by good performances and direction. There is nothing showy here, but director Fisher’s shot variations, actors’ movements within the scene, and nice lighting by Hammer’s ace cinematographer, Jack Asher, keep this interesting. This is the sort of often-unnoticed craft that fine professionals lavish upon a film to make it work. 

German actor Anton Diffring had a long acting career and is probably best known for the many times he portrayed Nazis in films. His striking profile, angular features, blonde hair, and piercing blue eyes were perfect for the image of Aryan arrogance. He is also known to horror fans for appearances in the British films Circus of Horrors (1960) and The Beast Must Die (1974). In 1958 Diffring portrayed Baron Frankenstein in Tales of Frankenstein, an unsold pilot that was co-produced by Hammer Film Productions for a proposed American television series. 

In The Man Who Could Cheat Death, Diffring’s Dr. Georges Bonnet is the main character that features in most of the scenes and the one we learn the most about. He has unique hardships in having to relocate and begin a new life every decade to avoid people noticing that he never ages. Bonnet suffers loneliness because he must break off any relationships he has formed. Nevertheless, he remains unsympathetic. This is not a fault in writing or performance; Bonnet is a villain. He may have some feelings, but he is still a cold-blooded bastard. His discovery of eternal youth is used selfishly and he will resort to any means necessary to maintain that life. 

Arnold Marlé’s role of Prof. Ludwig Weiss is the colleague needed to perform Bonnet’s youth-prolonging operation. He is also Bonnet’s dramatic foil that debates the ethics of their medical secret. Through his discussions with Bonnet, we get to know the villain better and are given the moral food for thought about this story’s science. 

Eventually, Bonnet explains why his eternal youth secret cannot be shared with the rest of the world. If humans never die, the world would not have enough food and space to sustain the population explosion. Without death, there would also be a shortage of recently deceased gland donors. These are valid concerns, yet they never justify the selfish Bonnet’s ruthless measures to maintain his secrecy and prolong his life.

In tried-and-true mad science fashion, the potion Bonnet drinks to keep him going at the end of his ten-year cycle takes its toll on his sanity, yet we never feel that all of Bonnet’s murders are just the unfortunate side effect of his experiment. He has committed murders for decades and never shows remorse for his crimes. 

One interesting gimmick that is used to enliven the proceedings a bit is the transformation Bonnet goes through if he is a bit late drinking his glowing green nightcap. This concoction keeps his physical corruption at bay for a short time at the end of his ten-year cycle until he can get a new gland implanted. If someone delays Bonnet’s ten-year toast, he has very dangerous withdrawal symptoms; he gets green-skinned and bug-eyed. (I sure wish that drinking instead of abstaining would prevent my hangovers.) Most peculiar during these spells is that Bonnet either burns or rots the skin of other people he touches. This effect is never explained and is just meant to provide a little monster action, but it is unique. 

With Anton Diffring’s aloof presence as Dr. Georges Bonnet, it must be his confidence, money, and Renaissance man reputation that has him scoring with a succession of beautiful models. Being a successful physician was surely a big enough attraction, but Bonnet is also a talented sculptor. As this is the most lengthy artistic process for capturing the likeness of a nude model, it allows him ample time to “get to know” his subjects. You know, I am starting to really admire that Bonnet fella… 

The ravishing redhead Hazel Court is always a welcome presence in any cast. Georges Bonnet aborted his relationship with Court’s Janine Du Bois when he split Italy at the end of his recent holiday. (Unthinkable! I admire him much less now.) Janine runs into Bonnet again in Paris as he is unveiling the statue of his latest model (Delphi Lawrence). Janine is still stuck on the elusive sculptor/doctor and entices him by agreeing to pose nude for him again. (Okay, now I admire him even more!) This modeling scene supposedly featured the magnificent Hazel Court’s topless nudity shown from the front in European prints. I have seen a still of this online, yet I wonder if those missing shots were ever actually shown. Hopefully that complete print of this film is made available someday. Why should only bad guy Bonnet have all the fun? 

Aside from her beauty, it is actually Hazel Court’s manner that makes us side with her underwritten character. All we know about Janine is that she was in love with Bonnet. She can have her pick of men and has already been seeing another handsome doctor, but she will try renewing a relationship that Bonnet ended without explanation. Almost any other actress in this part would probably only earn our contempt, yet Hazel Court’s charm somehow deflects that intolerance. 

I find Hammer legend Christopher Lee to be the biggest surprise here. At first, it seems like he is in a rather thankless role. Instead of being the monstrous main attraction, he plays a supporting role as Janine’s unappreciated suitor, Dr. Pierre Gerrard. None of Lee’s usual commanding authority or cold arrogance is on display here. Lee plays a subdued and honorable character in love with a woman that immediately passes him over for the guy that ditched her. Janine never tells Gerrard this, but we can see he has a few unspoken concerns. As the story progresses, Lee’s Dr. Gerrard becomes a key player and we learn to really respect yet another underwritten character. 

My description of two characters as underwritten is in no way meant as a criticism. These two parts are there to serve a story that chiefly revolves around the despicable Dr. Georges Bonnet. Embellishing the roles of Janine and Dr. Gerrard would probably only distract from the dramatic through line of the story rather than augment it. Sometimes people are not all that deep, and what complexities they may have are not always revealed in real-life, either. In fact, a fine performer that makes us believe in a simple character is just as impressive as someone trying to pick up an Oscar by spilling his or her dramatic guts all over the place. 

Despite having Hazel Court, Christopher Lee, and many of the other talents that were involved in Hammer’s inaugural Gothic horror classic, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Man Who Could Cheat Death is not a very high profile film from Hammer’s innovative period. While not as atmospheric or intense as many other Hammer horror films, it remains a thoughtful approach to a simple mad science yarn. One’s appreciation for it will depend in large part on Anton Diffring’s performance. Sometimes a villain is just a villain, and that is what Diffring gives us in his Dr. Georges Bonnet. He does not revel in his evil, but he demonstrates that the greatest evil is usually just extreme selfishness.