Director
William Beaudine
Cast
John Lupton - Jesse James
Narda Onyx - Dr. Maria Frankenstein
Cal Balder - Hank/ Igor
Estelita Rodriguez - Juanita Lopez
Jim Davis - Marshal MacPhee
Steven Geray - Rudolph Frankenstein
Rayford Barnes - Lonny Curry
With the recent release of Godzilla vs Kong last month, a rematch fans waited nearly 60 years to see, I was curious as to what other horrific crossovers have wowed audiences in the past. Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), Dracula vs Frankenstein (1971), Freddy vs. Jason (2003), and Alien vs. Predator (2004) are just a few titles.
Regardless of whether a crossover movie has a bad story or not, audiences always seem to remember the fight over the plot. Even before Godzilla vs. Kong, people talked about Toho's third Godzilla movie, King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962). Even if they had never seen it, they knew of its existence.
It was the ultimate showdown between the East and the West before Godzilla vs. Kong.
After my review of one rather forgotten crossover movie, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, I came across another title - Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter. It was released the same year, and has the same director, William Beaudine. With a title like this, surely this must be the crossover of all crossovers! Right?
Beaudine, by the way, directed the Walt Disney western classic Westward Ho, the Wagons! (1956) as well as another horror crossover I just have to find and watch - Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952).
I never thought I would stumble upon a copy of Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (not that I was actually looking for a copy), but I did.
I found it packaged in a collection of other more or less obscure horror thrillers called "50 Chilling Classics." They're a package of public domain films, including Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon, Drive-in Massacre, I Bury the Living, Man in the Attic, Lady Frankenstein, Messiah of Evil, Silent Night Bloody Night, and Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory. These are likely movies most people never heard, including myself. Still, it was the best $10 I ever spent. I'm anxious to watch each one.
Despite the title, Jesse James really meets Frankenstein's Granddaughter.
In this movie, Dr. Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx) is living out west in an abandoned mission she uses as a laboratory.
She continues the experimentation her late grandfather performed, this time on children and cadavers. After kidnapping them, she replaces their brains with artificial ones in order to use them as her slaves. Her brother, Dr. Rudolph Frankenstein (Steven Geray), works as her assistant.
Little does Maria know that the reason her experiments fail is because Rudolph secretly injects the subjects with poison moments after she revives them. He has a bad conscious participating in her experiments because they're initially playing God on stolen children. He'd rather see them dead than as zombified slaves to his sister.
One of those kidnapped children is the son of Mañuel and Nina Lopez. The couple, along with their daughter Juanita (Estelita Rodriguez), are out searching for their missing son.
Meanwhile, the outlaw Jesse James (John Lupton) and his muscular henchman, Hank Tracy (Cal Bolder), enter town to join with a local gang called the Wild Bunch, led by Butch Curry (Roger Creed).
They intend to rob an incoming stagecoach carrying $100,000.
Before the stagecoach arrives in town, Butch's brother and fellow gang member, Lonny (Rayford Barnes), goes to Marshal MacPhee (Jim Davis) about the planned holdup as he wants to go straight from now on, and collect the bounty for James's capture.
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| James Lupton and Narda Onyx in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter |
When the stagecoach finally arrives, the gang attempt to rob it but the Marshal and his deputies engage them in a shootout, wounding Hank in the shoulder.
James and Hank escape the gunfire, and stumble upon the Lopez's campsite.
With Hank wounded and bleeding, James asks the family if they can join them, which they permit.
Juanita tends to Hank's wound, and offers to take him to a hospital in town.
Knowing that neither of them can go back into town, James declines the offer.
Juanita then offers to take them to the mission where Dr. Frankenstein resides.
Her parents, however, forbid she goes there knowing that there's something evil taking place within the mission walls.
During the middle of the night, Juanita wakes the two men up and secretly takes them to see Dr. Frankenstein.
Frankenstein agrees to help Hank, though she's really interested in using him as part of her experimentation. Being well built, muscular and healthy, Hank is ideal for her evil scheme.
When the Marshal starts sniffing around the mission for James and Hank, Frankenstein covers for them.
She also attempts to seduce James, but he resists.
Frustrated her advances didn't work, she sets James up by sending him to the town pharmacist with a note he believes is a prescription for Hank. Not bothering to read it, the note actually gives away his identity.
James does what Frankenstein asks, and gives the note to the pharmacist.
The pharmacist tries to not show any alarm, and says he has to go into the back room to find what he needs. He actually sneaks over to the Marshal's office to tell him Jesse James is at his pharmacy. The Marshal isn't in, but Lonny is.
He tells the pharmacist to stall James while he goes over there to shoot him.
Frankenstein starts operating on Hank, and gives him an artificial brain.
While she successfully revives him with a new brain, and turns him into a slave with the name Igor, Frankenstein discovers Rudolph attempting to sabotage her work on Hank. She catches on that this is why her experiments failed before.
James returns from the pharmacy, royally pissed that Frankenstein set him up.
She orders Igor to knock him out, which he does.
They strap Jesse to an operating table and Maria prepares to do an experiment on him as well.
The majority of this movie is a western with a splash of science fiction horror. It's not until the third act that the horror comes out.
Though it's easy to poke fun at this movie, especially as the title is the most intriguing part, the story is actually not as terrible as it might sound. It's certainly not cinematic gold. It's not even as memorable as other horror crossovers. It just barely works.
There's an old adage that no one sets out to make a bad movie.
The acting and writing has some effort behind it, and it shows.
Somehow the story in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter barely passes by as a decent enough film.
It's as campy as any other western of the era is - gun fights, western sets, and in this case, a mad scientist with a laboratory.
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| Narda Onyx as Dr. Maria Frankenstein |
The film takes place in the 1880s, yet Frankenstein has electronic equipment set up that I'm sure didn't exist during this period. And though she relies on lightening, it's unclear how she's able to electronically feed her equipment. If she has a generator, how is that powered?
Anyways, the two styles are like oil and water on screen in this movie.
Looking past that, it's the pairing of the outlaw Jesse James against Dr. Frankenstein's granddaughter that manages to be intriguing.
It's nothing more than an imaginative hour and a half popcorn classic.
The actors, especially Narda Onyx, seem to be having fun in the production. Otherwise, if it wasn't for the protagonist and antagonist, the movie would be just another 1960s schlock film. (Actually, it already is, to be honest. Without Frankenstein's name in the title, it would be even more so.)
I wanted to see how the writers of this movie pull it off. It really is a stretch. I don't see how it couldn't be so.
As I said, the story might be bad, but the fight is remembered by the audience for a long time. In this case, anyone who has seen this movie will surely remember when the historic Jesse James met the granddaughter of Dr. Henry Frankenstein .
Incidentally, villainous female mad scientists, especially during this era, are few and far between. Just off the top of my head, the only other villainous female mad scientist I can think of is Dr. Pamela Isley, also known as "Poison Ivy." She's one of Batman's foes in the comic books. Her first appearance, by the way, was in Batman issue #181 published in 1966 - the same year as this movie's release. Coincidence? Yeah, probably. I'm sure a Google search can come up with more names. But as far as I know, Dr. Maria Frankenstein is among the earliest female mad scientists. How's that for progressivism?
I have to add that John Lupton resembles Jesse James a bit, too. Good work, casting director.
It's movies like this that deserve a remake.
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