Lady Frankenstein, cette obsédée sexuelle

A typical exploitation sex&horror flick from the early 1970s for the most part, it has one distinguishing quality that elevates it from the usual dross: its leading lady, Rosalba Neri. She has screen presence, she is sexy, strong, sensual, menacing, seductive, independent, radiant. Even in the nude, when other genre actresses go into autopilot, become passive, timid, or giggly, even then she stays in control. I almost forgot to mention that she can act as well. Watching her in films like this I just cannot understand how mainstream cinema could have failed to give her more substantial projects to work on.

This movie essentially begins with a man named "Baron Frankenstein" (Joseph Cotten) conducting secret experiments with his assistant "Charles Marshall" (Paul Muller). As luck would have it, they are soon visited by Baron Frankenstein's daughter "Tanya" (Rosalba Neri) who tells them that she has just attained the title of surgeon from a university and wants to help them on their research. However, Baron Frankenstein is hesitant to tell her everything because he doesn't want her involved in case anything goes wrong. As a result, he continues working in secret and not long afterward successfully transplants a heart and a brain from a recently deceased murderer into another body. Unfortunately, before he can complete his work "the monster" (Peter Whiteman) kills him and escapes from the laboratory into the surrounding area where he immediately goes on a killing rampage. Undaunted by all of this, Tanya not only attempts to cover up any evidence leading to her father's culpability but also continues even further with her father's experiments. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a rather unusual film which had both good and bad points. For starters, I liked the way Tanya developed into such an evil and manipulative person after the death of her father. On the other hand, I thought the appearance of the monster was quite ludicrous and hurt the overall effect immensely. Be that as it may, because of its uneven nature I have rated this movie according. Average.

I gave this a 5 because of Rosalba Neri's wonderful performance as the Lady Frankenstein. Actually she's the daughter of Dr. Frankenstein, played by Joseph Cotten in a routine manner, but routine from Cotten is always good regardless. The flick deserves more than 5 based upon Neri, and decent acting all around, good sets and good atmosphere. It also deserves less than 5 due to a pretty crummy monster, both in appearance and mannerisms. Makes one long for the days of Glenn Strange, or even Kiwi Kingston. It's like everyone went to sleep when it came time to design the monster, because everything else is above average. And way above average is the performance of Neri as a really sexy and domineering lady doctor. She's a 10 in this flick and makes it worth watching.

When Baron Frankenstein (Joseph Cotton) is killed by his creation, his daughter sets out to create her own to bring the killer to justice and to make herself the perfect mate while she's at it. This one focuses on this more disturbing aspect of this and does a decent job of exploiting it.

I was quite stunned to see so many wonderful sets and costumes here, plus a decent atmosphere and lighting too. The film looks better than it is...The Monster may not be up to expectation but the rest delivers better than you might expect.

This Italian-made Gothic horror movie often gets the short shrift from fans of the overrated Hammer films of the time. Sure, it has much lower production values and, sure, Rosalba Neri (aka "Sara Bay")is no Peter Cushing, but there's no doubt which one of them I'd rather see naked. Seriously though, Neri shed her clothes so graciously on screen and looked so appealing doing it that no one ever gave her credit for being the great actress that she was. She carries this movie pretty much by herself--Joseph Cotton is good as her father but he is killed off early, and Mickey Hargitay isn't bad but is horribly miscast as a 19th century police detective. Probably more than in any other of her movies, Neri stays dressed here. But the two scenes in which she does shed her Victorian garments are VERY memorable, and not for the usual reasons. In one scene she helps her would-be lover kill a handsome but idiotic handyman by having sex with the guy while her accomplice smothers him with a pillow, but her evil and lustful character doesn't let the guy's untimely death interruptus the coitus. The look on her face as she has "the little death" well after her sex partner has had the big one (and her poor would-be lover can only watch) is amazing and very perverse. There's probably not another actress that could have (or would have) pulled it off. The final scene, if anything, is even more warped, so much so that it was censored from many prints. Let's just say that this nymphomaniacal Frankenstein just can't resist Frankenstein's monster, and the sight of the two of them on the operating table stops even the rampaging villagers with torches dead in their tracks.

Is this is a classic Frankenstein movie? Well, no. It resembles the Mel Brooks comedy "Young Frankenstein" more than the Hammer films or the Universal classics, but it is reasonably well-made, definitely pretty entertaining and it is, if nothing else, the sexiest Frankenstein movie ever.