La fille de Frankenstein

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.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Richard Cuhna; Produced by George Foley and Marc Frederic, for Astor Pictures release. Screenplay by H. E. Barrie; Photography by Meredith Nicholson; Edited by Everett Dodd; Music by Nicholas Carras. Starring: John Ashley, Sandra Knight, Donald Murphy, Sally Todd, John Zaremba and Harold Lloyd Jr.

Quickie sci-fi/horror of campy interest due to its rank stupidity and cruelty to characters and the non-aficionado audience. An American son to Dr. Frankenstein is added to the story conveniently by an old coot who helped the original as a youth in feeding the Jekyll & Hyde notion to a dumb young girl who galliants monstrously about the countryside. Not content with this white nightgown special, he grafts another young woman's head onto the body of a spare parts monster, and the old coot declares of her: "Frankenstein's daughter".

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!

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.

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.