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 Frankenstein's daughter finishes medical school and comes back home to
"her tired ill-fated father" and goes to work making a monster of her own.
They finish up with this interesting sentence: "This film's homage to sex and
horror with its innovative camera work and special effects guarantees its
prestigious place in cult history." 1971, 85 minutes, DVD
If you bought this DVD because of the Little Annie Fannie inspired cover art
for the Lady Frankenstein portion of the disc, you'll be sorely disappointed.
I'm not sure who that blonde chick is injecting stuff into that monster, but
she never makes an appearance in the film. In fact, the woman who does star as
the titular Frankenstein progeny doesn't ever operate on a monster. Sure she
gets involved in some brain transplant scheme, but that's just a brain-swap
with her old, crippled up loser husband and the retarded, yet hunky handy man.
The movie is obviously trying to sell us on some Euro-sleazy chills and
thrills and just as obviously fails to deliver. What you're left with is a
cut-rate update of the Frankenstein story, that gives a nod to women's lib
(Remember when that fad was all the craze?) and a little gore and skin that
gives a nod to the various Hammer films of the era, but is probably only
memorable because of how goofy-looking the monster is. He's this tall lug
dressed in a very unflattering brown outfit, whose head is half disfigured (his
face caught on fire during the lightning storm that gave him life -ouch!) so
that one of his eyes is just sticking out of a bunch of lumpy flesh. I think
he also has some pointy thing sticking out of his head, but you'll really get
caught up in how the monster moves. Sometimes he's quick, sometimes lumbering,
sometimes stumbling, sometimes limping, and sometimes he just looks like he's
styling and profiling. An inconsistent portrayal of the monster's gait isn't
really the biggest handicap this movie suffers from. That would have to go to
the bogus premise upon which everything hangs.  Joseph Cotten (who apparently has friends at Madacy since he has himself called
James Cotten on their DVD box) is hopefully growing his retirement nest egg in
this one as Dr. Frankenstein, because this probably isn't the sort of prestige
project you would have expected from a Orson Welles crony who snagged himself
roles in Citizen Kane, The Third Man, and The Magnificent Ambersons. Looking over his body of work, he probably would have tried to contract that
pneumonia that finally killed him a little earlier, if he would have known that
his professional career after this film would have involved a couple of Airport sequels and a Fantasy Island TV movie. This particular Frankenstein he's playing is busy buying corpses
off of the local scumbag, who may or may not have been played by the
questionably named actor, Herbert Fux. As soon as I saw this movie was going
feature a guy claiming to be named Fux, I knew that I in fact was probably
going to end up Fuxed, but I soldiered on, my anal-retentive determination to
finish watching this double-feature DVD over-powering my urge to replace my
boss' Jimmy Buffet CD that he plays incessantly at the office with this one
(yeah, I know a DVD won't work in a CD player - it's a win-win situation). So
Franky is doing some experiments, like Franky does and who comes home from
college after never writing or calling, but his daughter Tania. I gasped,
because that sounded an awful lot like Tanya and we all know that Tanya Tucker
was the first lady of country music and I began to wonder whether she had been
named after the hussy daughter of a mad scientist. My barber assured me that
you pronounce Tanya, Tan-ya, while they pronounced Lady Frankenstein's first
name as Ton-ya or something (of course that's pretty close to Tonya Harding and
I don't think anyone who isn't named Gilooly would want that). Update on
Tonya Harding while we're on the subject: She's out of jail after drinking
some booze and violating her probation or something. Unknown whether she is
still living in her Corvette.  Lady Frankenstein, like her daddy is now a doctor and while a movie about Lady
Frankenstein partying at college and stuff would definitely be worth a look,
we're stuck with her in her post-grad career. Apparently, even though she was
really great in med school (just ask her), she doesn't have a job, so she
spends her time at the castle sneaking into daddy's secret lab where she
discovers that he is working on creating human life. That's a pretty good deal
for her, because playing God was her major in college. Her dad though doesn't
want her around when they try to kickstart the creature to life, so he sends
her to bed and then he and his assistant, Dr. Marshall, wait until there's a
lightning storm and I think you know the drill from there. With the monster
alive, Marshall goes to tell Tania so she can she her new half-brother (or
whatever he is) and when they get there, Frankenstein is dead on the floor, a
victim of a rather boring bearhug from the Monster. The problem with the
Monster's attitude is the usual - damaged brain, no time to fix it or get new
one - won't be anymore rain storms for months. So he's going to be going on a
rampage here pretty quick and seconds after grieving for her father, Tania
starts making command decisions. While Marshall wants to tell the fuzz what
went down, Tania realizes that this movie needs one of those plot twists that
defy logic and announces that they will say a robber or something came in and
killed daddy. They won't mention the Monster, because that would ruin Dad's
reputation with the townspeople as an incompetent mad scientist, who would now
see him as an incompetent mad scientist that can't beat up a guy whose face
caught on fire mere moments before the big bearhug. Her plan is to make sure
her father's reputation is unsullied by creating her own creature to destroy
the rampaging one who when last seen was stumbling upon some lovers who seem to
be mostly naked and doing it right across the road from the castle. To show
you the combination of class and originality this one had, they re-do that
scene from Universal's Frankenstein by having this Monster throw this naked
chick into the water. As it was happening, I was cringing thinking about how
cold that woman was going to be when she hit the water, especially since it had
been snowing a few scenes back.  Tania needs a brain so she goes off to one of those dudes that her dad always
bought bodies off of and he offers to procure one for her if she'll let him
jump her bones. She politely declines, then apparently whines about it to Dr.
Marshall who promptly confesses his secret love for her. He's got a bad leg or
a narrow urethra or something, because she's not exactly sold on a relationship
with him, but she does offer him a way that he would have a shot with her. If
he would let her transplant his brain into the body of the young and studly
moron named Thomas, then she would be knocking boots with him whenever they
weren't playing God. This plan would also require him to kill Thomas and I
guess he would also be expected to knock off the rampaging Monster (I only say
"rampaging" to trick myself into thinking that this Monster does anything
except wander about periodically and push people around - this movie is not
very good in a fairly unremarkable way and it's hard for me to be bothered to
say anything good, bad, or otherwise about it.). Well, you know what a chance
at some booty will do to an otherwise level-headed mad scientist. Next thing
you know, Thomas and Tania are getting jiggy with it and Marshall sneaks up
behind him and suffocates him with a pillow. Once he's on the operating table,
Tania seems to be having second thoughts and Marshall is pretty much like, "um,
I just killed this guy for your dopey plan, plus my head is shaved, so get on
with it already!" In the movie's most surprising turn of events, the operation
goes off without a hitch. Marshall's brain gets put into this goof's body and
everything is as good as new (except for Thomas' brain, but that thing was shot
anyways). It is about this time that Thomas' sister shows up looking for him.
Tania gives her the brush off, but it's getting harder and harder to brush off
the cop who keeps showing up asking pointed questions about the rampaging
Monster. In spite of the movie's half-hearted attempts to update the story with some
flesh, blood, and a woman in charge of things, in the end they rely on that old
chestnut that all of us horror movie fans look forward to at the end of every
Frankenstein movie: angry mob of villagers storm castle with torches. Since
this was the 1970s though, while the castle gets lit up, Tania and Marshall
decide that that would be the ideal time to lay down in the castle's front room
and bump uglies. I'm thinking that calling her Lady Frankenstein was being a
tad charitable. The movie is one of those ugly seventies horror movies that
for some reason doesn't lather on the sex and gratuitous violence like you
would expect (and which truth be told would be its only saving grace),
preferring instead
to feature lots of scenes where people talk about stuff that doesn't
matter like the various scenes of the nosy cop harassing the chief body
snatcher. Mr. Jayne Mansfield, Mickey Hargitay is utterly wasted in the role of
the cop who smells something fishy (damaged brains most likely). He's given
some of the movie's worst dialogue and those of us hoping for something along
the lines of his over-the-top performance as the Crimson Executioner in Bloody Pit Of Horror, are rewarded with a single line where he tells the body snatcher, "you're an
ugly man." Mickey also manages to look older and more haggard as the film
progresses and is probably the film's best special effect. The story really
fails to ignite any interest, mainly because no one beyond a Frankenstein would
ever think that creating another creature to defeat one that is already on the
loose and killing townspeople would somehow make their family look good. I'm
not really sure why this one has any fans, because it isn't very good (looks
bad, bad dubbing, no atmosphere beyond scurvy seventies vibe) and it isn't
anything so strangely demented (like Hargitay's Bloody Pit Of Horror) that it's enjoyable as a celluloid train wreck or anything. If you're
looking for something like that, I would recommend you see another movie about
Frank's little girl, Frankenstein's Daughter (though you would then be sacrificing your dose of Mickey Hargitay and this
James Cotten guy who looks suspiciously like real movie star Joseph
Cotten).
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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