Frankenstein himself. Robert Powell, who played in this film the adopted son and assistant of the main character, Sir Cunningham (R. Stevens), still had in the 70s to star in Ken Russell in “Maler” and Liliana Cavani in one of the films of her “German trilogy”, “Beyond Good and Evil”. Probably, according to these roles - composer Gustav Mahler in the eccentric Russell biography, rolling into a godlessly funny grotesque, and Dr. Paul Rae, a friend of Nietzsche, who was played not by anyone, but by Erland Josefson, Powell will remember the history of cinema. “Spirit of the Dead Man”, which followed in the horror experience of the actor behind “Psychhospital”, will not stand in comparison with the aforementioned two films, which stand out even in the vivid contexts of the work of each of the masters. "The Spirit of the Dead" is worth seeing.
First, this film about another “Professor Frankenstein”, juggling life and death, is set in a really interesting and unpredictable scenario that makes several sharp turns, in which the history of English culture of the second half of the XIX century thickens. At first, Sir Cunningham, an anti-death penalty fighter and member of the Spiritual Society, believed that the technological novelty of photography was able to capture the most elusive, namely, the human soul. When she separates from her body before she dies. In these pictures of the dying, something cold, cynical, impious is already felt. However, an even bigger novelty, the cinematic apparatus, allows Sir Cunningham to notice an important detail - something is moving not from the one who is about to die, but towards him. This is a startling discovery, however, when the bride and son of Sir Cunningham die under the lens. But the researcher, captured by the feverish run of knowledge, is not up to sentiment. He puts forward the theory (I am only clarifying the confused annotation given to the film on this page) that it is a personal spirit of death, a mythological Asphyx. This is the first sharp turn. Further, the intrigue will still present surprises, and only hint that “Frankenstein” is mentioned not just as an idiom.
For, secondly, not being a horror movie by the modern concept, The Spirit of the Dead Man is a film with psychological and ethical content. And it only goes back in part to Mary Shelley's novel. Many questions will arise: the powers of man and the powers of the Creator, the accident that stands in the way of the most perfect designs, and whether it is accidental? – and besides, sin and atonement. Because the plot is based on the legend of Agasfer, the man who pushed God.
The mythological Asphyx, meanwhile, reminds of suffocation - asphyxia, and of the monster Sphinx, which, as must be remembered, was a strangler, in addition to putting people before the mystery of man and his three life stages, childhood, maturity and old age. According to the Sphinx, man is an animal that walks on four legs in the morning, on two in the afternoon, and on three in the evening. Is it just an animal? The white guinea pig from "Dead Man's Spirit" nods with conviction.
Thirdly, this is a film with a laconic, but good style of the English gloomy genre, a little slow and, perhaps, too delicate, but aged with taste and slightly reminiscent of Dickens. The famous and later “Doctor and the Devils” with Jonathan Price, Timothy Dalton and Julian Sandz, of course, more naturalistic, his “Gothicism”, more insistent and more frightening, is launched into a dance of rags and death, so I would like to pay tribute to the noble restraint of the “Spirit of the Dead Man”, even in the sixties. And, as is probably already clear, although it is not Cavani and not Russell, Robert Powell and Robert Stevens in this film had something to play, but it is always a shame when a genuine actor appears in a film where his name and image deserve a place, and dramatic talent is given the most distant and cramped corner.
7 out of 10