Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter

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.

This is one of those movies that "Mystery Science Theatre" was made for (I don't know if MST3K ever did one on this). All of the fun is asking questions that nobody who made the movie ever did. Why is there only one bed in the Mexican household? Who gets to sleep in it? Do they take turns? Why is Lady Frankenstein's brother so much older than she is? Juanita leaves her parents in the wilderness and doesn't she ever worry about them? When Jesse goes to the pharmacist to get some medicine, the pharmacist goes in the back room and exits out a back door to get the sheriff. When he gets back, he starts preparing the medicine. What was his justification for going into the back room?

(Perhaps I overthink things. . .)

This is a movie to goof on and in that respect it triumphs tremendously.

"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.

Thought dead, Jesse James joins the Wild Bunch (!) for a stagecoach robbery. Double crossed, he escapes an ambush and takes his wounded partner Hank (Harry?) Tracy to the house of Frankenstein's granddaughter for treatment. She instead plans on turning the hulking Tracy into the newest Frankenstein monster.

Not for all tastes, this is actually pretty good if you catch it in the right mood and if you have a sense of humor.

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter is neither the best Jesse James nor Frankenstein movies ever made. However, it's a lot of kookie fun. Also, it's slightly better than the infamous companion film Billy The Kid Versus Dracula.

Under the supervision of of veteran director William Beaudine, this is a pretty even mixture of the old poverty row western and horror films, slathered in a thick coat of 1960's color and shot in widescreen.

Giving credit where credit is due - unlike many other Jesse James flicks, this one actually cast an actor that looks like James!