Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

jamesraeburn2003 Paris 1890: A doctor and sculptor called Georges Bonnet (Anton Diffring) has discovered the secret of immortality. Every ten years he commits murder and removes the victim's parathyroid gland to replace his own. However, after 104 years his surgeon, Ludwig (Arnold Marle), who knows his secret is too old to perform the necessary operation. Bonnet, in desperation to save his life, blackmails a young surgeon, Dr Pierre Gerard (Christopher Lee) into doing it for him by kidnapping and threatening the life of the girl both men love, Janine De Bois (Hazel Court)...Inevitably tame nowadays compared with contemporary horrors and, indeed, with some of the stuff Hammer were turning out even at that time. Nevertheless, this is still a rewarding early offering from that studio and its best known director Terence Fisher. The screenplay by Jimmy Sangster at times plods along like a tedious drawing room play - it was, after all, adapted from a stage play by Barre Lyndon - but it is rich in period detail thanks to impeccable costume design and Bernard Robinson (the production designer) was a master at turning out lavish looking sets giving the films the impression of being more expensive than was actually the case. Hammer's master cinematographer, Jack Asher, sees to it that the film has a dreamlike quality with its wash of warm yellows and the luminous greens of Diffring's laboratory. Fisher succeeds in generating maximum suspense where the opportunity affords like when Diffring abducts Court and reveals his intention to make her like him thus preserving her beauty and keeping his lover under his thumb forever. It is up to Christopher Lee and the police inspector, Francis De Wolfe, to save her. But can they? With three of Hammer's top talents involved, the general mood of the work is enough to carry it through despite its shortcomings in the script and shock department.

Theo Robertson Brits of a certain age will remember the days when BBC 2 used to show horror double bills during the Summer months . The Universal franchise from the 1930s and 40s always seemed to be treated with a lot more respect than the Hammer films in that they were broadcast in chronological order where as with Hammer the scheduling was much more patchy . This early Hammer horror produced in 1959 made a solitary appearance on one of the double bills and to my knowledge it never made another appearance on network TV . Directed by Terence Fisher who was by far the best of the Hammer in-house directors and made a point of watching it as an antithesis to the gore and torture porn that qualifies as horror in the 21st Century Perhaps I have become desensitised to old school horror ? because THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH is a fairly bland film compared to what we get nowadays . On seconds let's analyse this a bit further - it'd probably be fairly bland compared to what the studio were also making from the same period . Fisher seems to be under the impression he's making a period drama and the colour scheme and sets are not unimpressive . It also contains some other Hammer hallmarks in that woman are well endowed in the breast department and everyone who has a foreign accent is not to be trusted but the film is rather too talkative and found myself having to constantly remind myself that I was watching a horror film and not something by Michael Powell and that must be seen as a failure of sorts

MARIO GAUCI This is among the first Hammer Horrors I watched but, after checking it out twice on Italian TV as a kid (once as part of a late-night horror programme called "Zio Tibia Horror Picture Show" featuring a couple of amiably grotesque puppets, which is how I first caught up with the likes of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN {1935} and THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN {1942}!), the film seems to have dropped off the radar completely in my neck of the woods; finally, it was recently released on R1 DVD by Legend Films since this was the only title from the legendary British company to be distributed by Paramount. It is actually the third version of Barre' Lyndon's play "The Man In Half Moon Street", first filmed in Hollywood in 1943 (albeit only released a couple of years later!) and again for British TV in which Anton Diffring, the star here, actually originated his role (for whatever reason, the name of the protagonist changes from one version to the other!); even so, Hammer's then top leading man Peter Cushing was supposed to play the part but, thankfully, saner minds prevailed as I am not sure he would have been ideal as a ladies' man (the heroine, then, is future "Queen Of Horror" Hazel Court in her last of 2 films for Hammer). It is interesting to have Hammer still adapting stuff from TV at this point, even after they hit the jackpot with reinventing the classic Gothic literary tales! Anyway, having just watched the earlier movie, it is quite clear which is the superior version since Jimmy Sangster's excellent script deals far more thoroughly with the themes inherent in Lyndon's source…which, as mentioned in my review of the original, draws quite a bit from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" – though, this being Hammer, the horror aspect (aided by Fisher's typically full-blooded handling and Diffring's intense characterization) is a lot more pronounced. That said, Diffring is ably supported by Christopher Lee (who, despite having attained star status thanks to Hammer, generously accepted a supporting and heroic role this time around: oddly enough, his doctor character here shares his name with another one he would play in the later, similarly Sangster-scripted Hammer chiller TASTE OF FEAR {1961}!) and Arnold Marle' (who also reprised his role from the TV version as Diffring's elderly associate).Being a relatively early genre effort by the company, the color palette is very handsome, effectively rendering both the late 19th century Parisian setting and the moments of pure horror, notably the greenish hue emitted by the boiling flask which holds Diffring's life-sustaining serum. Incidentally, while the protagonist of the 1945 version was really a 90-year old, here he is made to be 104 (and it is amusing to watch Diffring try to convince Lee that he is actually a good 15 years older than the stroke-stricken Marle'); again, the protagonist has a dual career as an artist (though he is a sculptor now rather than a painter) but, inconveniently, his models all fall for him and have to be disposed of (which is one of the clues the Police – represented by Francis De Wolff – eventually follow). Here, too, the gland operation is good for a whole decade but, in this case, we are better able to accept the fact that in the interim he tries to rebuild his life, not to mention that when the effect begins to dissipate and Marle' has still not turned up to perform the life-saving operation, he is forced to kill and kill again because the gland withers after a few days!Among the number of differences between the two movie versions one finds that, in the 1945 movie, when the protagonist's colleague is unable to operate, he has to rely on a young man he saves from suicide and who just happens to be a medical student (after having gone through a list of disgraced members of the profession), whereas here it is Lee who gets asked (who is in love with Court herself, naturally) but initially refuses (so that Diffring has to refer to an alcoholic doctor and, bafflingly, an oculist!). Here, too, he does operate eventually but he does not perform the gland transplant, which obviously proves Diffring's undoing; the latter comeuppance is quite messy (much more horrific, in fact, than the original's) – involving both the age reversal (featuring great make-up effects by Roy Ashton) and his being set on fire by a model he had kept imprisoned (and deformed, since apparently his skin becomes abrasive as the effects of the drug fade!) after she discovered his secret.Diffring would follow this with an even more notorious genre outing, CIRCUS OF HORRORS (1960), but he never quite became a star (being too often relegated to playing Nazi officials in Hollywood WWII epics); even so, later horror titles of his include MARK OF THE DEVIL PART 2 (1973; which I will be getting to presently), THE BEAST MUST DIE (1974; for Hammer rival Amicus and with Peter Cushing!) and Jess Franco's FACELESS (1987; which also sees him involved in unethical operations spiced with a series of murders). Incidentally, following these viewings, I am also in the process of acquiring Ruggero Deodato's belated giallo PHANTOM OF DEATH (1988) starring Michael York, Edwige Fenech and Donald Pleasance in view of its apparent thematic similarity to the Barre' Lyndon play.

english-rose The Man Who Could Cheat Death is a remake of The Man In Half Moon Street, the stage version of which also starred Anton Diffring. The book of this title gives much more back-ground to the character of Georges Bonnet which explains his actions, but unfortunately is lost in the film version, but I think Anton Diffring conveys the torturous life of Bonnet very well. Although he appears cold and heartless he is in fact in desperate need of being loved in a secure relationship, but because of his past he cannot allow himself to achieve this. He is incapable of understanding why his actions are so wrong, and this makes him a vulnerable character despite his obvious intelligence, success and wealth and in the end invokes pity from the audience. I believe Peter Cushing was originally down to play the starring role in this film opposite his familiar adversary Christopher Lee, but because of other commitments he had to turn down the part and suggested Diffring instead. From appearing cold and heartless to pleading and frightened I think Anton Diffring excels in this film and was the perfect choice for the role, although in some parts the acting would have benefited from more positive directing. Christopher Lee and Hazel Court are excellent in their roles and give fine performances in what is a thought provoking and beautifully shot film.