LADY FRANKENSTEIN [1971]

Review Number: #003

Movie Title: LADY FRANKENSTEIN  

Original Italian Title: LA FIGIA DI FRANKENSTEIN (English translation: The Daughter of Frankenstein)

Year: 1971

Colour

Cast: Joseph Cotton, Rosalbia Neri (under the name of Sara Bay), and Paul Muller.

Director: Mel Welles 

Run Time: 85 minutes

You know what pisses me off dear reader with most of the bad films I just happen to encounter? Oh, no, no, no it’s not with the Acting, Scripting, Direction or shoddy sound and camera work, no it’s a films wasted potential. What do I mean by a films wasted potential? Well imagine a unique low budget big-screen adaptation spin on the FRANKENSTEIN story by Mary Shelly with a twist, but that is thrown down the toilet when the film becomes a near sexploitation film. So hence a film with wasted potential, oh wait that description of a film with wasted potential IS a description of the 1971 film Lady Frankenstein , all I can say about this film is it’s a soft core piece of S#%t.

Ok Lady Frankenstein or its original Italian title La Figia Di Frankenstein (English translation: The Daughter of Frankenstein) isn’t all that bad but is severely dragged down by pointless soft-core sex scenes. The things that make this film interesting is the brilliant performance by the then aging Joseph Cotton as Baron Frankenstein (who had stared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of A Doubt [1943], starring with Orson Welles in The Third Man [1949], and in Welles critical masterpiece Citizen Kane [1941])   and this films unique spin on the Tale of Frankenstein. But sadly this film as a fair few flats which is why this film is the 3^rd and final Blog-review of a Mad Doctor and Mad Monster themed movie in The Movie Ghoul’s Cult Cinema Reviews for a little while. Also to make this review special this is the first Movie Ghoul review of an exploitation film, a movie made outside of the U.S.A and the first movie shot in colour to feature in this Blog, so read on dear reader of the Tear down of Lady Frankenstein.

Movie's Poster

The Plot (or has one but gets ruined by various things): To be honest I’m quite surprised by how good this film story is. The film starts off with an aging Baron Frankenstein (Joseph Cotton) and his assistant Dr Charles Marshal (Paul Muller) buying a corpse form grave robber Lynch and his men. It turns out the Baron has been working many years making his monster and in a few scenes later Lady Frankenstein or Tanya Frankenstein (Rosalbia Neri) , the daughter of the Baron returns for medical school and makes clear of her intentions to aid her father in his work. But her father is reluctant to allow this, in a fair few scenes later a hanging of a criminal introduces the character of Captain Harris who has a strong hate for Lynch and vice versa for Lynch, this rivalry/ enemy relationship makes this rather minor sub-plot seem quite interesting.   

Jospeh Cotton as The Baron Frankenstein

But anyway on one stormy night (of course) Baron Frankenstein and Dr Charles Marshal create the infamous monster, but with a fair few flats and setbacks the monster turns out to be nothing more than a mindless killer and kills the Baron (now that’s bloody good twist)  while Charles informs Tanya about their success. The two are horrified to discover that the monster has killed the baron and has escaped; Tanya then reviles to Charles that to save her father name she will make a new monster that will kill her father’s monster. While in the meantime Charles and Tanya try to throw off Captain Harris form discovering that the monster killed her father by trying to trick the Captain that a burglar killed the Baron. While the monster roams the country side, kills a woman who was having intercourse with her partner until they were rudely interrupted by the monster (wow that’s one way to kill some ones buzz, LOL), the monster kills other people which includes the entertaining and sleazy Lynch much to the Captains disgust, who really wanted to see him hang.

Well that's the thing that can only "Satisfy Her Strange Desires" :-X

Anyway back at the Castle Tanya discovers Charles love for her so in an evil way Tanya decides to kill a handsome stable hand and place the brain of Charles in the body. (Um that could be seen as necrophilia in some way I think) so Tanya seduces the stable hand, has sex with him and Charles kills the stable hand during the act, (Autoerotic Asphyxiation ends badly? Ha why doesn’t that surprise me dear reader? ) and so Tanya operates on Charles and to cut a long story short the operation is a success  and the monster is on the way back to the castle to kill Charles.  Now Harris is well aware of what has been going on at the castle after helping the stable hands sister to find her brother.  The movie ends with a monster duel between Charles and the monster which results in Charles winning and victory sex with Tanya which ends with being killed by Charles by being straggled, the movie fades to black and /......nothing else happens. That’s right the movie ends at the end of a soft-core sex scene..... That’s one F$%ken stupid way to end a film of any sort.

The Acting, Direction and Cinema- Photography:  the acting in this film is actually bloody good. Joseph Cotton delivers a brilliant performance in only the 30-40 minutes of screen time he is given, while the other actors and actress are all decent.

The direction is ho-hum to say the least after all its directed by Mel Welles, who the diehard cult cinema hounds would remember as Mr Mushnick, the flower shop in Roger Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors [1960]. His direction was not that interesting and all I can say is “This Movie is No-good-nick”. The cinema-photography is ok and not that notable so I just skip to this films weirdest moment or moments.

The Weirdest/Dumbest/Strangest or Just Plain Disturbing Moments   

Here are the moments in Lady Frankenstein I found just out of the ordinary.

The Monster: The look of the monster is well just plain silly just look at this picture of the thing below.....I rest my case on this one.

Snowing at Night then suddenly in the day ah where is the snow: Ok in the opening during the night snow falls but in the morning the snow seems to melt like a vampire at day break.

The Score:  The movies score in parts, especially the intense scenes of operations is just bizarre, the score sounds like a train is going past with its horn blowing a full blast.

The Pointless Sex Scene and Nudity: In really bad films sex scenes are thrown in to make the film seem good, but in this film it has a good script and acting, the sex scene seems to have little relevance. In fact this Frankenstein film easily falls into the Sexploitation genre with its over-the-top nudity.

The sudden fade to black at the end: I’ve already mentioned this earlier in this review about this moment, still it stinks to high heaven.

Overall Lady Frankenstein is that much of a bad film, its brilliant story and brilliant performances of Joseph Cotton are its saving graces but are ruined by a cheesy monster and useless sex scenes which kills this films atmosphere from which it never recovers from after Cotton leaves the screen. My rating for this film is out of a possible 0 to 5, and the rating is a simple 3 for its unique spin on the story of Frankenstein.

 

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE [1962]

Review number: #002

Movie Title: THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE  

Alternate Title:  THE HEAD THAT WOULDN’T DIE  

Year: made in 1959, realised in 1962

Black & White

Cast: Jason Evers, Virginia Leith and Leslie Daniels

Director: Joseph Green

Run Time: 82 minute (uncut), 70 minutes (censored version) 

Hello and welcome back, I am The Movie Ghoul and welcome to another thrilling/un-thrilling blog entry into this BlogSpot Blog dedicated to reviewing the wide world of Cult Cinema. Now to follow up my first entry of  a Mad Monster & Mad Doctor themed film, I thought the second blog entry should repeat this theme with another S#!**y Mad Monster & Mad Doctor  movie , which is also happens to be another Cult film oddly enough. The film on the chopping block is the 1959/1962 B-grade Horror dud The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, a movie so cheesy it’s got to be -seen- to –believed with a monster , a mad doctor and to top it off some head in a pan. So as always read on dear reader to find out why this Cult movie is just plain bad......

So yes BRAIN is another typical Mad Monster & Mad Doctor movie from the golden age of Low Budget trash, the Atom Age/ Drive –In friendly era. But what makes this dud more special is its surprising graphic violence (for a movie of its type), towards the end of the film a character losses their arm by having it ripped off by the monster. This was such a big no-no for the censors in 1959, BRAIN sat on the self gathering dust for three years until it was releases in 1962, just two years after Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece PSYCHO [1960] was released and one year before the Drive-in theatre and cinema changed forever when the world’s first gore film BLOOD FEAST [1963] hit screens. Today this film holds little interest for well anyone aside for cult cinema hounds. So let’s just cut the history lesson and tear into this wonderfully bland film starting with the plot....

The Plot (or lack of one); BRAIN tells another cautionary tale of the moral dangers of science and one evil doctors quest to immortal glory even it means breaking the rules of nature....... LOL this movie’s plot is just another cheap Frankenstein inspired monster movie. The plot tells the story of the handsome but stubborn young doctor called Bill Cortner who after an operation (and a weak and lame ethical debate with his Dad) is told that he is needed back at his lab in his country home. So his fiancé Jan tags along with Bill who drives like a bat-out-of-hell on a dangerous road, (Ooooh, can you guess what happens next?). Bill causes a car crash which kills Jan but manages to save her head and after taking the head to his lab, Bill with his assistant Kurt save Jan by doing this............

Bill & Jan or Jan & Bill or Bill with Jan in the Pan or Jan in the Pan with Bill. Or more appropriate actor with actress with her head stuck in a table.

So Bill must now must save Jan by getting her a body so what does that mean exactly? Go around Strip Clubs and Model shows to find the perfect female body...... (Hurm, I think a strippers body wouldn’t that be a terribly great replacement considering the risk involved. What could be the possible risk involved with a stripper’s body dear reader? ...... yeah you know where I’m going with this) So Bill finds a replacement body which happens to be of a mistreated model who he tricks.

Meanwhile back at the lab Jan only says three things A) she complains that she wants to die, B) She talks to the monster in the closet and says that she has powers and C) she talks to Kurt and threatens Kurt, which results in a uninspired climax which is a no brainer (sorry about the pun).

The Monster or Mr Pizza-faced Egghead  

The Acting, Direction and Cinema-photography: what can I say with the acting it’s a cross between wooden and bad acting most of the cast just chew the scenery (which there is F$%k all off).

The Direction is flat and dull and the same can be said for the cinema-photography which is just plain and forgettable, which typical of a cult movie of its type.

Special Reasons to View This Film

MST3K: to the fans of the cult T.V show MST3K (Mystery Science Theatre 3000) which made fun of incredibly bad films over the series 10-11 seasons, the episode which  BRAIN was the film to be rifted to pieces holds a special moment to the fans of the series. The original host and creator Joel Hodgson had left and was replaced by a new host Mike Nelson and was the first film Mike rifted on the show.

The Gore Factor: take a look of this image below.....

The gore of a low budget film of its type and age it was made is quite shocking, for the fact Kurt has his entire arm ripped-off by the monster and bleeds to death, but this is done in such an odd way. Kurt stumbles around the lab bleeding, walks up stairs, sits in a chair in the lobby (while still bleeding), gets up and goes back down to the lab where he dies. Aside for the fact it was made in 1959 but didn’t see the light of day until 1962 BRAIN’s gore achievements, aren’t that ground breaking for being released a whole two years after PSYCHO [1960] was released and one year before the Drive-in theatre and cinema changed forever when the world’s first gore film (in colour) BLOOD FEAST [1963] hit the screens. Aside from that nothing would suggest that this is a real concentre reason to go out and view this film.

The Weirdest/Dumbest/Strangest or Just Plain Disturbing Moments

My favourite parts of these reviews were I get to list the moments I found to be out of the ordinary with this film.  

The Odd Cuts between Bill & the Strippers to Jan in the Pan:  ok when bill is talking or with a couple of the night clubs strippers the shot randomly cuts to Jan back at the lab and then back to the same scene for no apparent reason. What was the point or idea behind that random cut, I’ll never know the reason why.

The Meow: This is just random, kind of clever but very stupid, after Bill see a few stripper fighting over him he leaves while the two strippers fight but for no reason the film cuts to the wall banner which is of two cats and the sound effect of a meow is heard. I get that sound effect empathises the point that it’s a cat fight but holy s#!@t that random sound is just so funny to hear when it that sound effect comes out of nowhere.

The End Card: This next part is unbelievable; originally the film was under the title The Head That Wouldn’t Die before it was renamed to Brain. So what relevance is to the end title card you might ask? The end card reads   “The Head That Wouldn’t Die .......The End” where as the opening title card reads “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die”. This isn’t just a problem solely isolated with the uncut print but with every version of this film. All I can say is this; I hope the editor of this film was sacked for that massive goof.

Overall despite this films wrap as one of the worst movies ever made by some sources, I totally agree it’s a bad film that’s-so-bad-it’s-so-good. Only see this lame film if you a Cult Cinema Hound, a fan of MST3K, or just plain drunk. My rating is out of a possible 5 and for me it’s a definite 2 for all its technical faults and in parts dullness.

Note: This film is a Public Domain film so it’s on DVD for dirt cheap, on YouTube  and can be downloaded at The Internet Archives

First Review: Terror Is A Man or Blood Creature [1959]



Review number: #001

Movie Title: TERROR IS A MAN

Also Known as: BLOOD CREATURE (Reissue Title)

Year: 1959

Black and White

Cast: Richard Derr, Francis Lederer, Greta Thyssen, Oscar Keesee.

Director: Gerardo de Leon

Run Time: 89 minutes

A long time ago in a much simpler time one could enjoy the luxury of viewing a movie from the comfort of their car and enjoy a ridiculous monster movie with a half baked plotline. Now days Drive-in Movie theatres only exist in the minds of former patrons or in the history books and B-grade monster movies from the 1950’s exist in the public domain on cheap bargain bin DVD’s or in brilliant set boxes, in their entirety on YouTube or on the Internet Archives were they can be legally downloaded or being broadcast on some local regional T.V station as a Midnight movie in their graveyard slots.  These Atom Age monster movies where mainly shot on shoestring budgets, on Black & White film, had lurid plots, some poor bloke in a Halloween costumes, and stared no-name actors and were distributed by some cheap low budget studio and sold to some drive-in or cheap cinema as “Family Entertainment”. The 1959 movie TERROR IS A MAN or BLOOD CREATURE is one of those Atom- aged B-Grade wonders which was filmed in the exotic Philippines and today makes a group of Cult Movie hounds smile when they see it. 

Hello dear reader I am The Movie Ghoul one quirky Cult Cinema Hound who can’t get enough of tearing to some largely forgotten Cult movie from yester year. So with the help of this BlogSpot account it’s my intention with this blog to expose the wild, wild, wild world of cult cinema and criticises what I find to be just plain weird, odd, wonderful, and downright horrific with this small but broad genre of film. And with this very first blog review, I the Movie Ghoul will tear into the 1959 movie TERROR IS A MAN or also known by its reissue title BLOOD CREATURE, in this mildly and dry humoured review so read on dear reader first to look at is this films plotline.

The Plotline (or lack of one): Ok since this is a B-grade monster movie from the 1950’s expect the cliché “There a monster on the loose” story crossed with an ethical story ripped off from H.G Welles story The Island of Dr Moreau.

The story involves a Rugged, Butch, Handsome and All American Sailor William Fitzgerald who is found to be unconscious in a lifeboat on a small Island by Dr Girard and his assistant Walter who save him and take him back to the doctor’s home. When William comes to he discovers the local village abandoned and the only people on the Island to be Dr Girard, William, The servants a local brother and sister and the love starved and sexy blonde-in-need wife of Dr Girard, Mrs Francis Girard. So what is the hero of this story, William to do with the lonely Francis? That right start a love affair with her, talk about going above and beyond the call of duty dear reader to satisfy a married woman’s needs.

Anyway the whole reason why the doctor is ignoring his wife and why there are no locals left in the village is because the doctor has made a Panther Man through evolutionary experiments and surgery on a panther to create the purrr-fect man....0_o..... Um why is that exactly?   And also why that is even needed in the first place? In a chat with William, the doctor reviles these experiments will help advance the Human species and the panther is nothing more than a lab rat. Am I the only one that thinks dear reader that it would have made much more sense if the doctor just used a member of the Ape family instead of a member from the Cat family? Never mind the doctor continues to play God with his panther-man while he could stop William from stealing his wife by just playing with his....... (You know where I’m going with this).

Then one dark and stormy night with Thunder and Lighting the horror unfold (Chough! cliché). The drunken assistant, Walter (um chough, B-movie cliché) angers the panther man and tries to kill it which makes the Panther Man escape and goes on a rampage (Chough, chough! b-movie cliché). The monster then kills Walter and the young servant woman and kidnaps Francis, you know she is the damsel in distress (Again chough, chough! b-movie cliché) and it’s up to William to kill it when Dr Girard gets killed by his creation, hang on its up to the hero to save the day and the damsel? (Again chough, chough, F$%K it you know where I’m going with this).

So the plotlines quite generic but so is two out of three the next section The Acting, Direction and Cinema-photography.

The Acting, Direction and Cinema-photography:  The acting is quite standard, every actor and actress gives a typical performance for their typical characters archetype, nothing to write home about or whine about. Same goes for the direction again nothing to write home about or whine about. But the cinema-photography is defiantly something write about, wow some shots had a near Film-Noir look to them in shadow and tone, too bad it’s in a monster movie.

The Monster: Yes I’m even going to criticises the look of the monster, just take a look at this still and you’ll get a good idea of where I’m going to go.  

What can I say how is this scary when the monster looks like it’s got a ruddy beard.

The Weirdest /Oddest/ Craziest and downright strange moments with this film

There are only two odd things I found with this film and they are.....

 The Bell Ring in the middle of an operation scene: Before and after one operation scene a loud school bell ring is heard to tell the squeamish audience members to shut their eyes or look away. It’s understandable why the bell is there in the first place but it’s so odd by today’s standards. And come on its only an incision shown for 6 seconds , heck if the audience couldn’t deal with that how would of those people reacted to  Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece PSYCHO [1960] realised the following year or how would of those people react to the worlds first gore film BLOOD FEAST [1963]  (from Herschel Gordon Lewis and David. F. Friedman who I will mention more in later blogs) made and realised four years later I wonder.

The Title TERROR IS A MAN: Am I the only one who finds this title to be well odd and corny? Come on what sounds scarier or more appealing TERROR IS A MAN or its later reissue title BLOOD CREATURE? All I can say it seems this films distributor had my exact same thoughts on this one.

Overall Recommendation: It’s a generic B-grade monster movie with nothing else going for it. The good news is it’s not a bad movie (which may have made this movie well funny) but it’s no Oscar worthy film, in fact it’s a bit dull but ok. Recommend only to hard core cult cinema hounds alone and fans of Atom Age films. The rating is below with this ghost.......

 

Note: This is a public domain film so it’s on cheap bargain bin DVD’s or in brilliant set boxes or in its  entirety on to view on  YouTube or on the Internet Archives were it can be downloaded for free.

My all time personal favourite cult moives so far.....

For my first post on this blog I have decided to list my favourite cult moives so far...

 
 10. Roger Corman's DEATH RACE 2000 [1975]

9. Tim Burton's ED WOOD [1994]

 8. Herschell Gordon Lewis' TWO THOUSAND MANIACS ! [1964]

 7.TROLL 2 [1990]

 6. David.F. Friedman's JOHNNY FIRECLOUD [1975]

 5. THE SHOOTING [1967]

 4. John Carpenter's DARK STAR [1974]

 3. BASKET CASE [1982]

 2. Herschell Gordon Lewis' THE GRUESOME TWOSOME [1967]

 1. CARNIVAL OF SOULS [1962]

I hope to very shortly start posting the odd cult moive review on this blog, so watch this space
by
     The Movie Ghoul

All About THE MOVIE GHOULS CULT CINEMA REVIEW'S blogs

OK this is how the Movie Ghouls Cult Cinema blog works, since I just love watching Obscure, Weird , Bizarre, Wonderful, Underrated and down right terrible cult films why not Blog about my oddball passion? So my character The Movie Ghoul (who is a mad and passionate horror and Sci-Fi film nut) will voice his views on some of the most unique films known to humankind. So what will the Ghoul think of when he views and reviews something terrible like Monster A Go-Go [1965] ? Or how about seeing some legendary Horror film Stars like Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in some of their worst movies like Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla  [1952] or how about Isle Of The Snake People [1971], what will  his honest thoughts be?  Read on to find out in comming posts....
signed
        The Movie Ghoul