Sunday, August 21, 2016

The Frozen Dead, Elsa vs. The Third Reich

Zimbabwe born Kathleen Breck is a lovely B movie actress. In her role as Elsa Tenney in 1966's "The Frozen Dead," she will lose her head and conquer the Nazis in the process.  Eisenhower and Patton couldn't totally rid the planet of the Third Reich, but a very heroic and cute Ms.. Tenney came at them from a different angle. Perhaps Ms. Breck's role doesn't possess the stature of Elsa Lanchester's role of the bride or Simone Simon's feline role, but those two actresses didn't defeat Hitler's war machine, either. Also, Ms. Breck's performance dwarfs Mila Kunis' in her trash-epic, "Jupiter Ascending."
Dr. Norberg (Dana Andrews) is an escaped Nazi scientist who is living in England, continuing his experiments.  He plans to revive thousands of high ranking National Socialists who were frozen just after the war.  Believing Dr. Norberg is ready to start these resurrections, General Lubeck (Karel Stepanek) arrives to supervise.  He is also an escaped Nazi living in England under false identity. Worse news, Norberg's niece, Jean (Anna Palk) and her friend Elsa arrive a week early from their university holiday.  Never good to surprise a mad scientist...as Elsa will now find out.  Needing a fresh human head to carry out the last stages of the experiments, the Nazis strangle pretty Elsa and take hers.
Now living in a wooden box in Norberg's laboratory, Elsa is no longer pretty, and a bit angry.  A side effect to this experiment is that Elsa has telepathic powers.  This becomes uncomfortable when Elsa begins communicating with Norberg's failed experiments, who are locked in a dungeon beside the lab.  Even worse, Elsa begins communicating with Jean, who believes her friend left abruptly.  As the disembodied head is hooked up to other body parts, some her own...but not all, she begins to plot.  Jean, meanwhile, has contacted the cops and has brought out much suspicion on Norberg's lab.  Norberg's Nazi friends believe Jean is now a liability and plan her demise.  I have left out the handsome Dr. Roberts (Philip Gilbert). Roberts was summoned by Norberg to assist in his experiments, but falls in love with jean (yawn!).
Can Elsa save Jean from the Nazi thugs?  Are the frozen dead Nazis a mere metaphor for the evil that always seems to revisit civilization throughout history? Okay....let's not go there. This is a weird one, and the ending is quite haunting.  "The Frozen Dead" is totally a B movie, but it has scares that will give you nightmares.  Available on YouTube, enjoy "The Frozen Dead."

1 comment:

  1. "...she will lose her head and conquer the Nazis in the process...A side effect to this experiment is that Elsa has telepathic powers..."

    HAHAHA WOW!! Whatever happened to originality like that in Hollyweird. Nice find mate!

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