La figlia di Frankenstein

Capitalizing on the 'teenage monster' craze of the late 1950's, this is one is weak even by the modest standards of the teenage schlock horror school of film. It's better than 'Teenages From Outer Space,' but that's not saying much.

The eponymous monster, Frankenstein's Daughter, does not appear even vaguely female, instead looking like one of the lunch ladies from my grade school cafeteria, or perhaps the great thespian William Frawley.

I suspect the producers of this film must have figured out that they had Fred Mertz Monster on their hands, because there is a really strange and tangential subplot which involves making a temporary monster out of a cute young bathing-suit clad ingénue. This time the monster make up is good (by schlock-horror standards) and there is some interesting footage of a nice-looking bathing suit clad female body with a horrible monster face.

The other interesting thing in this film is the creepy, murderous and sexually predatory Dr. Frankenstein. He attempts to date rape one teenage girl, and he turns another one temporarily into a monster (see above). Oh, and the one he attempts to turn into a monster...well, he tries to put the moves on her as well.

The son of the great silent film comedian Harold Lloyd plays a part in this film, but damned if I can remember him. The guy who played the boyfriend of the ingénue/monster girl later showed up in a few of the Annette Funnicello/Frankie Avalon beach movies. There is also some obligatory teenage music and scenes by the swimming pool.

As an adult connoisseur of schlock horror and bad movies, this film is mildly enjoyable. Whereas some of the better teenage schlock horror films can also be enjoyed for their aesthetic value as well.

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.

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.

Along with SHE DEMONS, this is one of those movies that used to scare the heck out of me as a kid in Brooklyn watching Chiller Theater on Channel 11 on Saturday nights. It was part of the new hybrid of films that came in during the mid-to-late 1950s, horror movies aimed at a teenaged audience. Movies like FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER were of the low-budget 'schlock' variety, made on shoe-string budgets by poverty-row independent studios. Now, as an adult, it's fun to pop these movies in and have a good laugh at the sometimes over-the-top performances cheesy sets and 'special' effects.

Watching the movie this time, I was aware of its incredibly slow pacing, which seemed to be exacerbated by the incredible awful performance of Felix Locher as Carter Morton. He seems to be reading his lines phonetically off of cue cards, as though he's never seen them before in his life! I don't mean to speak ill of the dead, but I'm sure his is the WORST performance I've seen in ANY film, ANYWHERE, EVER!!!! He's so bad that he makes everyone else look brilliant!

This film has several 'horrors' on offer - the two 'monsters,' Locher's performance, and two dreadful teenage musical numbers. Take your pick!

Frankenstein's Daughter (1958)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Dr. Frankenstein's grandson (Donald Murphy) moves to L.A. where he becomes an assistant but in his off time he is creating another brutish monster. This film runs 86-minutes and I can't help but think it would have been much better had twenty-minutes been edited out. As it stands, this is a mildly entertaining film that has a few 'so bad it's good' laughs but in the end there's just not enough going for it to be rewarding in its running time. What does work are the monsters, which includes the one the doctor is making but we also have a second one involving a young woman (Sandra Knight) who is being drugged by the bad doctor, which transforms her into a beast. The make up effects are rather silly looking but they do create a couple interesting monsters, although it's very hard to believe that actress Sally Todd is behind the main one. Now, what really kills the film is that the two monsters get very limited screen time as most of it focuses on the doctor, the young woman and her boyfriend. All the teen drama stuff just doesn't work and I'm not sure how many scenes we need with people not believing who or what the monster is. John Ashley, Knight and Murphy turn in decent performances but quite often they garner laughs due to the rather weak screenplay they're working in. Harold Lloyd, Jr., has a small role here but doesn't impress too much either.