I love this movie so much

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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.

Brilliant doctor and sculptor Dr. Georges Bonnet (Anton Diffring) is 104 years old but looks less than half his age; the secret to his youthful appearance is to periodically undergo surgery to replace one of his glands with that of another human being. When his longtime associate Dr. Ludwig Weiss (Arnold Marlé) fails to perform the operation vital to his survival, Bonnet resorts to temporary solution—a liquid that can keep him fresh for a few hours at a time. But with the fluid running out, and with Georges hoping to spend eternity with his beautiful betrothed, Janine (busty Hazel Court, providing the Hammer glamour), the desperate doctor uses any means necessary to convince renowned surgeon Pierre Gerrard (Christopher Lee) to perform the transplant.The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) boasts the great production values and fine performances one would expect from a Hammer movie of the era, but the film is let down by a hackneyed plot that borrows ingredients from Jack The Ripper, Dorian Gray and Jeckyll and Hyde, but which does very little of interest with them. Diffring, Lee and Court do the best they can with the material, but it's all so familiar and frustratingly pedestrian that the excellent cast can do little to save matters. The film does pick up for the final act, with a nice twist courtesy of Lee's character and a spectacular finale in which age finally catches up with Bonnet before he is burnt to a crisp in a raging inferno, but there is no denying that this is far from Hammer's best.5/10—however, if I ever find the elusive European cut featuring Hazel Court's topless scene, I might be tempted to give it slightly more.

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

Hammer's most famous and greatest 'mad science' franchise is, of course, the great Frankenstein series starring the almighty Peter Cushing as the ruthless and yet somehow very likable Baron Victor Frankenstein. While THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH (1959) is by no means as great as Hammer's Frankenstein films it is a very atmospheric mad-scientist-flick with an excellent cast. Directed by Hammer's Number one, Terence Fisher, THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH is an adaptation of a play that was first filmed as THE MAN IN HALF MOON STREET (1945) which I haven't seen yet.The mad scientist in this film is played by the always-sinister Anton Diffring, who had played Baron Frankenstein in Hammer's own TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN, a 1958 pilot for a planned Frankenstein TV-show that wasn't made. Actually, Diffring's character in this movie, Dr. George Bonner isn't really that 'mad', regarding his situation: In Paris of 1890, Dr. Bonner is a man who seemingly is in his 40s. However, he is in fact 104 years old and keeps his youth with the aid of a serum. In order to survive, he needs periodic gland transplants from young and healthy victims. Needless to say he is willing to kill for his life...THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH co-stars two Hammer icons, British Horror-beauty Hazel Court and the inimitable Christopher Lee. Both deliver great performances as usual. Personally I like Christopher Lee most when he is evil, but hero-roles such as in this film also fit him well. Anton Diffring is a specialist for sinister and macabre characters, and he is once again excellent here. 19th century Paris is a good setting for a Hammer film; even though most of the movie plays indoors here, director Fisher once again makes great use of the Hammer-typical visuals, creating a thick Gothic atmosphere. Overall, THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH offers few surprises and may not be an essential must-see, but it is tense and atmospheric Gothic Horror and should not be missed by my fellow Hammer-fans.