FILM & REVIEW An oft-overlooked entry in the Hammer canon which is a shame as it’s rather good. Paris 1890 and Diffring plays Dr Bonnet a celebrated surgeon and sculptor who hides a dark secret. He is awaiting the arrival of Dr Weiss but who is a few weeks late - in the meantime he meets fellow surgeon Gerrard (Lee) and his girlfriend Janine (Court) the latter who had modelled for him and had fallen in love. The reason he needs Dr Weiss is to perform an operation on him and it’s revealed that although Wiess is a very old man Bonnet is even older - as students they realised that by replacing a gland every 10 years the patient never ages and is immortal . Wiess has had a stroke so Gerrad is persuaded to take over with misgivings. Obviously the gland can only come from a live person so every 10 years Bonnet vanishes along with whoever was his then model…. It’s a very literary script with nods to Dorian Gray and although Diffring was a last minute replacement for Cushing who pulled out having done 4 films back to back but is very good - a monster but a very charming one and Lee and Court are equally good - so 4/5