Frozen Alive

Are you ready for this? A scientist(Mark Stevens)and his attractive assistant Dr. Helen Wieland(Marianne Koch)are working with suspended animation and while trying to prove their theory he subjects himself to the big freeze. Meanwhile his jealous and drunkard wife(Delphi Lawrence)is murdered and being in a frozen state does not an alibi make. In spite of a cult following this chunk of ice is hardly worth defrosting. Suspended interest. Unanimated suspense. Predictable story line. Still it is fun to watch. Also in the cast are: Joachim Hansen, Walter Rilla, John Longden and Wolfgang Lukschy. Lawrence is over-the-top and her character is so easy to dislike. On the other hand it is obvious to see why she would be jealous of her husband's assistant. Catch this as part of AMC Monsterfest.

As someone already said, this is a silly melodrama. It's more about a triangle with two scientists and the drunken wife of one of them. The fact that they are performing experiments in suspended animation using low temperatures is really not an issue. It is secondary to the efforts of the man to continue to live with this unstable women. At least her character is pretty believable. She is pathetic and unpredictable. The man is more than patient. The subplot has to do with the determination to perform these experiments on human subjects, which is met with resistance by the head of the lab. Even that is poorly portrayed and uninteresting.

Yes, I'm probably giving it way too many stars, but I really have a proclivity both for British films of the 60's and sci-fi thrillers about cryogenics and suspended animation. I didn't pay too much for this (it was part of my now-infamous Mill Creek 50-pack called 'Nightmare Worlds'), it wasn't very long (around 70 minutes in my cut), had jazzy, African and crooning music that I found highly enjoyable, had two gorgeous actresses at its core and a bizarre plot (which intercut plot lines of becoming the first to safely freeze and re-animate a human being, with an accidental shooting death that the scientist/first human subject is the main suspect of), and though it was rather predictable, I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would easily recommend it to anyone that likes B-movies from the 60's. You could do a heck of a lot worse.

Somewhat relatedly, I would to see any other films that either Marianne Koch or Delphi Lawrence were in. I loved both of them dearly in this film.

American star Mark Stevens ("The Dark Corner") stars in this German sci-fi flick as an American scientist, Frank Overton, working for the World Health Organization. He and his associate Helen Wieland (Marianne Koch) are performing experiments on chimps, putting them in deep freeze for a while and then resuscitating them. At roughly the time that Frank gets the bright idea to become a human guinea pig, something unexpected happens that lands him in trouble.

Screenwriter Evelyn Frazer and director Bernard Knowles don't have as much fun with this premise as one might hope they would. "Frozen Alive" is a classic case of "more talk than action", focusing on the personal problems of the characters (Overtons' wife Joan (Delphi Lawrence, "The Man Who Could Cheat Death") is resentful and an alcoholic) and not spinning a particularly interesting yarn. It's fairly static, and lacking in style, and one can see that this was done on a low budget. It starts to get better in its last half hour with its amusing twists of fate. Its opening credits are a gas, as the music segues from traditional ooga-booga sci-fi music to much more jazzy stuff.

The characters are reasonably engaging; nobody here is particularly dislikable. Stevens may be slumming, but he gives the material a straight faced go. Buffs will automatically realize that Koch and co-star Wolfgang Lukschy were also utilized in the legendary Spaghetti Western "A Fistful of Dollars" around this time. Joachim Hansen ("The Boys from Brazil"), Walter Rilla ("Day of Anger"), and John Longden ("Quatermass II") are among the solid supporting cast.

"Frozen Alive" is nothing special, but does offer a mild amount of fun.

Five out of 10.

Frozen Alive is an odd mishmash of science drama, murder mystery and soap, but the narrative never really reconciles any of the threads. Moreover, when the frozen solid 'action' finally arrives, the pace is so slow that you may think that your screen has frozen. In this context, the creakiness of the film often makes it feel like a film made much earlier than the 1960s. Perhaps it was made earlier and kept in suspended animation? Anyhow, 1960s low-budget potboilers are often fun, but I'd recommend that if you get the chance to see this frozen-based caper, let it go.