Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter

"Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter". Who can resist a title like that? A Frankenstein monster in the old west. You have to wonder how they are going to mesh the two together and what the result will be. The name of this movie tells you right off the bat that you can't really expect much in the way of a very serious movie. I mean, come on, what did you think? The plot has a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of unrealistic scenes, I was fully expecting that. This is the type of movie that you have to go with the flow. Don't ask too many questions. It's not that kind of a film. This was probably been made with kids as the intended audience in 1966. The movie combines cowboys, Indians, old west robbers, a sheriff, Mexican villagers, Jesse James and his partner, a European brother and sister mad scientist team, and a monster. With all that, you should have an exciting although strange movie. That's what I was expecting, a lot of action. That's not what I got. Surprisingly, there isn't that much excitement. The movie moves slowly and is pretty tame. The so called monster is also a bit of a dud. Not that scary and could have been done so much better. Although this film was actually quite bland, I'm still glad I watched it. It's all in the title. I just had to see what this movie was all about. For any fan of the older monster movies, this should be on your list, maybe quite far down on the list, but never the less on the list all the same.

According to the IMDb here, William "One Shot" Beaudine directed no less than 298 films before his death in 1970. In 1966, he brought all his 50-some-odd years of experience in the industry to bear on his final film, "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter," and the result is one of the more unusual movie concoctions you will ever see. As the title suggests, this film conflates the Western and horror genres, although not so stupidly as 1957's "Teenage Monster." Here, James and his beefcake sidekick, on the lam after a botched holdup, knock on the wrong doctor's door seeking medical assistance. Maria Frankenstein, the granddaughter (not daughter) of the original, and a real chip(py) off the old block, almost leaps for joy when she sees Jesse's hunky pal, and wastes little time transforming him into "Igor," a lumbering automaton with a synthetic brain... Truth to tell, this film isn't nearly as awful as I had anticipated, and certainly exceeded my minimal expectations. Yes, it is a B Western at best, crossed with the usual Frankensteinian hijinks, but is quite entertaining for what it is, and moves along briskly. The film features some passable acting (I've seen much worse), some amusing lines, Injun attacks, shootouts, and all the cool-looking lab gizmos we've come to expect from a Franky picture. On the DVD that I just viewed, one of the extras is a running commentary track by Joe Bob Briggs, and it is both highly informative and extremely funny; better than anything one could hope to hear on MST3K. The man is a real treasure for the "psychotronic" film fanatic, and makes this DVD something special.

This one gives us a different twist on the son/daughter of ___ type of films. It's surprising that horror films and westerns can mix and mix fairly well together - this one is better than it sounds.

I was expecting this movie to be a really dorky, cheesy film or something that I could laugh at but this one is actually pretty good, interesting which is surprising to me. This one is serious and can easily be taken that way.

This one does not have a "mysterious" feel about it like a lot of horror films of the time era (except for the Gothic castle) but an overall aura of the old west as expected. The combination seems to work well in this film as strange as that sounds.

5/10

Legendary outlaw of the Old West Jesse James, on the run from Marshal MacPhee, hides out in the castle of Baron Frankenstein's granddaughter Maria, who proceeds to transform Jesse's slow-witted pal Hank into a bald zombie, which she names Igor.

This film is generally considered to be pretty awful and has a fairly low rating on IMDb (though I have seen worse ratings). I am not going to dispute this by saying it is a forgotten masterpiece, but really... it may not be as terrible as you might want to believe.

The acting is pretty bad and the plot is a bit questionable, but there is something to be said about campy movies. They have their place. And, really, how many horror westerns are there? Not as many as there probably could be. This is a bit of ground breaker.

Veteran filmmaker William Beaudine, with 256 movies under his belt, directed this dreary, low-budget, drive-in oater without much flair. Beaudine and scenarist Carl Hittleman go to absurd lengths to give the preposterous plot (what if Jesse James tangled with Frankenstein's daughter) a plausible set-up. Our notorious heroine and her elderly assistant have fled Germany to conduct their abominable experiments in the relative isolation of the old Southwest in a converted monastery. Film theorists will have a field day with the metaphorical implications of Frankenstein renovating a Catholic monastery. Maria Frankenstein longs to follow in her dastardly daddy's footsteps, but the Mexican peasants nearby don't make good guinea pigs. They have a nasty habit of dying on her. Interestingly enough, Frankenstein's daughter relocated to the American West to take advantage of the frequency of lightning. Anybody who has heard the commentary track on the Kurt Russell movie "Tombstone" may recall the director commenting on the abundance of lightning on their movie set in Arizona, so "Jesse James" contains a modicum of plausibility. The infamous outlaw is trying to lay low when he hooks up with Butch Curry and the Wild Bunch. (Obviously, Butch Curry is Butch Cassidy, but the producers must have felt that one real-life outlaw was sufficient.)Anyway, Butch's greedy brother Lonny alerts Marshall MacPhee about Jesse's whereabouts. During an abortive stagecoach robbery, Jesse's partner Hank catches a slug in the shoulder, and Jesse takes him to the House of Frankenstein to get patched up. Naturally, evil Maria takes them in, because muscle-bound Hank qualifies as the perfect specimen for her blasphemous experiments. See what I mean about the bedrock of plausiblity? This horror horse opera appears to have been shot on a shoe-string budget, since Beaudine stages the action largely in master shots. A mustached John Lupton makes a bland Jesse James. Other than an accurate alias, Jesse's character has been white-washed beyond recognition, and he utters lines about himself that only a censor would pen to dissuade anybody from following in his footsteps. After Hank's transformation to Igor, the camp factor in the action picks up, but there is simply not enough camp to keep this western fired up. Not as hilariously awful as you might imagine, but nevertheless this hybrid-genre hokum is tame, without fireworks. Maria dons a multi-colored G.I. helmet during the transformation sequences, and her laboratory pales in comparison with even a Hammer entry. At one point in the film, she refers to herself as Frankenstein's granddaughter. The producers really should have made up their minds. If there is anything truly execrable about this superficial, saddle-sore sagebrusher, scrutinize the long shots of Frankenstein's monastery: it's an obvious matte painting! Maria Frankenstein is a hoot as a character. In a lackluster cast, veteran character actor Jim Davis of "Dallas" fame stands out as a stalwart lawman, while long-time heavy Rayford Barnes provides the most excitement as he tries to collect the reward on Jesse's head. Worthwhile only as a curiosity piece, "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" (* out of ****)lacks the audacity of "Lady Frankenstein." The year after Beaudine made this nonsense, he helmed "Billy the Kid Versus Dracula."