‘Frankenstein’: This Monster Has Been Here Before : Recalling Another ‘True Story’
Regarding Jeff Kaye’s article “Real Story of a Guy and His Monster” (Calendar, Nov. 17), about Turner Network Television’s upcoming movie “Frankenstein”:
In 1973, a movie for TV--weighing in at four hours--was shot in England at Pinewood Studios. It was called “Frankenstein: the True Story,” and the script by Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy followed Mary W. Shelley’s path exactly, all the way to its icy end.
This Universal Studios project had an international cast. Michael Sarrazin played the Creature, and the rest of the cast was impressive to say the least: Agnes Moorehead, David McCallum, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Nicola Paget, James Mason and Jane Seymour as Prima, the female counterpart to the Creature. The film received wonderful reviews and it still plays today on television.
How do I know this? I saw it being filmed. My husband, Jack, directed it.
The four-hour “Frankenstein: the True Story” aired originally on NBC Nov. 30-Dec. 1, 1973.
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