Jesse James Contra a Filha de Frankenstein

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 is great. The overbearing bitch daughter of Frankenstein wants a strong man for her hideous experiments in human subjugation. Perfectly understandable. Enter Jesse James and his stupid bodybuilding sidekick and you have the perfect setup. There's no need to wonder what Madame Frankenstein would have actually done with the bulging baldy she creates if she was given half a chance. Amazingly, this one gets dead serious after the title card; all part of it's charm. Joe Bob Briggs hosts the DVD presentation, appropriately and appreciatively.

"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.

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.

Of course you can't expect too much from something that proudly presents itself as a low-budgeted hybrid of two entirely different classic film genres and their main icons. Director William Beaudine was clearly exploring the possibilities of exploitation cinema and considered it a great idea to shoot two films back-to-back (the other one being "Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula") that blend legendary horror premises with gunslinger heroes of the Wild Wild West. The result is neither fish nor flesh, but I must admit I expected this film to be a whole lot worse. "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" is a bunch of silly nonsense, but it's fairly well made and the acting performances are far superior than you usually see in this type of productions. The title is wrong, for starters, since it isn't really Frankenstein's daughter Jesse James encounters, but his granddaughter. She – Maria - emigrated towards the States, along with her cowardly brother, to continue her experiments of resurrecting lifeless human tissue. Their unsuccessful tests already wiped out an entire community of poor farmers that lived around their castle and only the adorable Juanita and her family are left. Meanwhile, the wanted outlaw Jesse James and his strong but simple-minded sidekick Hank escape from an ambush and seek refuge in Lady Frankenstein's castle. She sees in the severely wounded Hank the ideal guinea pig for her demented experiments, while Jesse falls in love with the poor farmer's daughter and battles some bounty hunters. There are absolutely no horrific sequences in the script – Frankenstein's victims are resurrected by placing colorful motorcycle helmets on their heads – and the western aspects aren't exactly spectacular neither. All of a sudden, Jesse James is a noble outlaw who steals from the rich to give to the poor (give me a break!) and risks his own freedom to go out and buy medication for his dying partner. Right! Narda Onyx is a joy to observe as the mad scientist who clearly has no idea what she's doing and the Cuban born actress Rodriguez is sweet in her role of Jesse James' love interest. She died prematurely in the same year as the film's release.