Frankenstein's Daughter

I love this take on the "man creates monster" tale. This 1958 movie stars Donald Murphy as Oliver Frank (short for Frankenstein), grandson of the original monster maker. It is 1958, Los Angeles, and he is living with Dr. Carter Morton (Felix Locher) and assisting him with his experiments. Unbeknownst to Dr. Morton, Oliver is using the lab for not just legitimate experiments, but to try to carry on the "family business", creating a human being from body parts.

Sandra Knight portrays Trudy Morton, Dr. Morton's teenage niece. John Ashley is her good guy boyfriend, Johnny. To make a long story short, Oliver creates a woman monster using the head of Trudy's va va voom friend Suzy (played by 1957 Playmate of the Year, Sally Todd) who was killed by Oliver in a jealous rage, and various other body parts, mostly male. The resulting monster with a female head, all be it butt ugly, and male body is hilarious to say the least. There is also a side story where Oliver is drugging Trudy with a drug that turns her into a monster because she won't play hide the salami with him. The monster make up on both monsters is not scary, but laughable.

All teen oriented movies in the 1950's had to have a few dance/song sequences with that new music, rock and roll, and this movie is no exception. Surprisingly enough, John Ashley doesn't perform (he was a singer and sang in several 1950's movies, most noticeably to 50's scary movie fans in the movie "How to Create a Monster"). Instead, Harold Lloyd Jr. sings two songs with the Page Cavanaugh Trio. The songs are funny although I think they were meant to be serious back when the movie was released.

This movie has everything you would expect from a 1950's low budget horror movie...cheap sets, grade b actors, crapola make up and cheezy song and dance routines. In other words, everything for a fun movie!

Everyone remembers "their first time" of doing many things. So when people ask me why this movie is in my collection, I just tell them "It was my first". It was the first time I ever saw a horror movie in a theater. It was a double bill with Frankenstein's Daughter and The Man Without a Body. My cousin who was six years older than me took me. I was 8 or 9 I think.

I was absolutely terrified. I had just barely enough guts not to put my hands over my eyes and show my cousin what a coward I was. I never saw the movie again till I was in my 50's. Hmmm, no so scary but when I let my imagination go I could still remember the night in the theater and how I felt.

The best advice I can give others on this film is that my 5 was generous. It is, however, not just bad. It is wonderfully bad! If you want to have your own Mystery Science Theater, invite some friends over, serve plenty of drinks and laugh your way though the film. But watch out that there are no little ones in the room because they may react as I did in the theater all those years ago.

Well, words are hard to come up with to describe this routine premised monster film of the 50's. A descendant of the late Victor Frankenstein, his son Oliver to be exact, is hiding his identity and working as a lab assistant for a kindly scientist. The scientist is working on something beneficial to mankind, whilst his assistant secretly works his own experiments on his benefactor's niece. These experiments hideously disfigure her face and cause her to walk the streets scaring people at night. But soon we see that all this is really secondary to Oliver's real plans of recreating life...keeping the family tradition alive so to speak. With the aid of a disgruntled gardener related to Igor(or someone like that), Ollie and friend end up killing people and fusing dead body parts with the end result being the creation of a barely woman-like played by man being. Ollie is not just worried about creating life, however. He is a randy sort of chap who has the hots for the delectable niece and then her also delicious friend, played by playmate Sally Todd.

The rest of the film is how he is discovered by the niece and her boyfriend, with some implausible and disgusting music sequences thrown in. The acting is decidedly over the top by most concerned. Donald Murphy terrifically hams it up as Ollie. John Ashley is painful to watch as the boyfriend. Saying he has limited acting ability would be an understatement! Notwithstanding the complicated, highly ridiculous plot, the hammy performances, the cheap sets, the bizarre make-up, this is a fun one to watch. It grabs you early, has some fun sequences, and some lovely, lovely heavenly bodies to feast your eager eyes on.

Frankensteins Daughter is one of the greatest b horror movies of all time.It has two of the ugliest, scariest monsters ever.The murder scenes are great. Donald Murphy is great as the mad scientist. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants. I thought the music scenes were terrific, typical 50,s. A great escape. If you want horror, laughs and an absolutely fun ending to your saturday night check out Frankensteins Daughter.

For many years people derided this film as the worst Frankenstein movie ever made. Of course that was before things like FRANKENSTEIN '80 or FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS came along. I grew up watching this film on "Chiller Theatre" and now I have a beautiful sepia tinted print on video so it is indeed a pleasure of mine, and not a guilty one either. I like this film and I am not ashamed to admit it, so there! What a cast, Felix Locher, real life father of actor Jon Hall, as a dedicated but misguided scientist; Donald Murphy as yet another "last of the Frankenstein's" (the third one the movies offered us in the space of a single year!); Harold Lloyd Jr as the comedy relief, Sandra Knight (future Mrs. Jack Nicholson) as both the girl in distress AND the fill-in monster; and last but not least John Ashley as the hero. Two men played the title monster: mostly he (she?, it?) was played by Harry Wilson, former stunt double for Wallace Beery (you can see Mr. Wilson briefly in THEM! in the hospital scene. He is in the bed next to the one occupied by Olin Howland) and for the scene where the Monster is on fire stuntman George Barrows takes over. Ms. Knight is memorable as the crusty faced, bug eyed monster who dominates the first half of the movie. If she had just gone on one date with Mr. Murphy perhaps he would not have experimented on her; but of course the plot had to advance. It's the title monster that gets me. An ostensibly male body with the severely mutilated head of a female hit-and-run victim grafted on; talk about gender confusion! Mr. Murphy gets a classic bit of male chauvinism when he declares "The brain of a female is conditioned to a man's world, therefore it takes orders." Wanna bet? The first thing the monster does after it wakes up is wander out on its own and kill someone! It is polite enough to knock when it returns home at least. You have to love the party scene. Harold Lloyd Jr (backed by Paige Cavanaugh and his Trio, a jazz combo trying to ease into rock and roll) sings "Special Date" and "Daddy Bird" and nearly steals the second half of the movie. Oh, and for your trivia folder, that burned face makeup on Mr.Murphy that was immortalised in the opening credits of "Chiller Theatre" was accomplished in less than 5 minutes thanks to some clear gel, lens paper, and chocolate syrup. Director Richard Cunha made other features, but I do believe this is his best.