TeenzTen
An action-packed slog
FuzzyTagz
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
Connianatu
How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.
Richard Chatten
Made and set in Berlin under a veteran British director with a largely German cast and crew (the stern presence of Walter Rilla is always a sure sign during this period that we're watching an Anglo-German co-production) and a characteristically noisy Germanic jazz score; the title 'Frozen Alive' suggests an early film on the then hot (if you'll pardon the expression) subject of cryogenics: a word never actually used in the film itself. Unfortunately it proves disconcertingly similar to the previous year's 'The Mind Benders' (1963), which showed far less interest in the potentially fascinating subject of sensory deprivation than - as with this film - the marital problems of the scientist at the centre of the narrative.Delphi Lawrence is, however, a blast as Dr.Overton's glossy blonde wife - supposedly a famous fashion journalist, and with distinctly Germanic dress sense - first seen pouring herself the first of many, many drinks with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth as she also pours out her heart to her long-suffering German lover (Joachim Hansen). The film's production values, photography and pacing feel more like a TV production of the period; and even at just 75 minutes it feels wearisomely drawn out (such as a bizarrely irrelevant sequence in a bar with Joan Overton and her lover watching a fire-eater, of all things). Occasionally the film cuts back and forth between Overton in his lab and his wife's drunken maunderings as if something sufficiently dramatic is happening that actually calls for such emphatic editing; and even Ms. Lawrence begins to outstay her welcome when she starts waving her lover's gun about as if it's a toy - although it results in a wonderful death scene; both ludicrous and then moving as it finally sinks in on the poor woman just how completely she's screwed up...After meandering for so long, the film then suddenly rushes headlong towards an extremely abrupt conclusion - as if director Bernard Knowles has finally realised that if it's going to be sold as science fiction, 'Frozen Alive' needs some laboratory footage to include in the trailer and on the posters. Wolfgang Lukschy (reunited with his recent 'Fistful of Dollars' co-star Marianne Koch), as Inspector Prenton goes out of his way to be as boorish and unprofessional as only the detective in a German crime film can be (while his sidekick provides one of the film's occasional flashes of mellow humour by actually showing an interest in what the scientists are getting up to and ruefully pleading with his boss "Can't I watch, sir?" when instructed to watch the door while Overton is defrosted).Apart from Ms. Lawrence, the other Brit in the film is the veteran actor John Longden as the avuncular Professor Hubbard, making his final film appearance 35 years after starring in Hitchcock's 'Blackmail' (1929).
Coventry
This completely worthless piece of cheap European-produced 60's guff is available in a DVD box-set called "Tales from the Future", along with eleven other titles that really don't deserve to be seen by anyone. In fact, a more suitable – albeit less appealing – title for the collection would have been "Tales that belong in Oblivion for being so crappy". "Frozen Alive" is a boring, overly talkative, tension-free and soporific romantic melodrama that only just pretends to be a Sci-Fi story. A scientist and his attractive female German colleague are performing scientific experiments on chimpanzees, like putting them in the deep freezer for three months, but what they are really doing is fall madly in love with each other. Meanwhile, the scientist's alcoholic wife is killed by her lover and he gets blamed for it. Of course, it's rather suspicious of him to volunteer as the first human guinea pig immediately after his wife goes missing. Everything about this tiresome little production is insufferably mundane, from Bernard Knowles' motionless direction over the incredibly wooden acting performances of the two leads onto the irritatingly clichéd dialogs. Delphi Lawrence's performance as the arrogant wife in a seemingly permanent state of drunkenness is believable, but boring & pointless nevertheless. If you want to see nonsensical stories about triangular relationships and married people nagging to each other, you're probably better off watching "The Bold & the Beautiful" or any other randomly sappy Soap Opera show, instead of wasting money on a DVD-collection that supposedly contains Sci-Fi movies. Bah!
Hitchcoc
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.
classicsoncall
"Frozen Alive" plays it straight throughout it's eighty minute running time, and that might be it's biggest downside. With no pseudo scientific jargon to camp it up and little in the way of action, the film offers an early look at the field of cryogenics with a slight detour into a murder mystery.Dr. Frank Overton (Mark Stevens) and his assistant Dr. Helen Wieland (Marianne Koch) are about to make a significant breakthrough in their research after chimpanzees frozen to eighty below zero are revived unharmed after three months. The next step is to find a human volunteer to undergo the same deep freeze treatment and prove that medical science can benefit from the process. However Overton's wife Joan (Delphi Lawrence) is extremely jealous of her husband's lab time with Helen, and seeks comfort from former flame Tony (Joachim Hansen) and refuge in a bottle. Giving new meaning to the term soused, Joan shoots herself in Tony's apartment and makes her husband a widower. He doesn't know it yet, because he's advanced the cause of science by becoming a guinea pig for his own experiment.Everything just described occurs in a rather monotone and understated fashion, and without even the help of a musical score to emphasize the high points, the film fails to deliver. The detectives who arrive at the lab wishing to interrogate Overton as a suspect in his wife's death seem virtually uninterested in the fact that he's a human popsicle. Keeping her own feelings for Overton in check, Dr. Wieland almost pulls the plug on him by botching the revival, while colleagues just stand around performing her instructions. At least the rhythm of Overton's heartbeat keep things suspenseful until it's learned that Mrs. O's gunshot wound was self inflicted.This film offered the hope of much more in the way of mystery and thrills but comes up short in both departments. As far as a recommendation, I would advise to keep this one on ice until you've exhausted the rest of your movie library.
