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