Undescribable Perfection

Beautiful, moving film.

Awesome Movie

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

They should have never met. It's weird that a western/horror hybrid film was made in with these two really different character figures. They seem so out there. Both are like in the far side of spectrum, from each other. It's like combining the historical figure, Billy the Kid to fight Bram Stoker's Dracula. Oh wait, they did! This film was originally released as part of a double feature with Billy the Kid vs. Dracula in 1966. Both films were shot in eight days at Corriganville Movie Ranch and at Paramount Studios in mid-1965; both were the final feature films of director William Beaudine known for one-shot takes. The movie was indeed, poorly made and low budget, with tons of day for night shots, awful matte painting, goofy-looking electronic devices props and bad special effects. At least, this movie made the fictionalized version of the real-life Jesse James (John Lupton) more into an interesting outlaw, than the bland 'good guy' cowboy, like the previous film, did to Billy the Kid. Even the acting was a little better than the previous film. The movie goes like this, after a botched holdup with the Wild Bunch, Jesse James and his meathead, friend, Hank Tracy (Cal Bolder) is seeking medical assistance. They find themselves, camping in a refugee camp where they heard from one of the camper, Juanita Lopez (Estelita Rodriguez) that Dr. Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx), can help Hank with his deadly wound. Instead of treating the wound, Maria turns Hank into "Igor," the Frankenstein monster, a reanimation corpse with a synthetic artificial brain for evil. Can Jesse James stop Dr. Frankenstein and her monster or will the mad doctor win out in the end? Watch it to find out! Without spoiling too much of the movie. The one thing is how it ruin both Frankenstein and the Western folklore. It was very odd that they call, Butch Cassidy as Butch Curry. I know the movie is fiction, but I don't get why they kept Jesse James's name in, but change Butch Cassidy? That's a bit odd. The same with Maria. When Jesse James does meets Maria, it's not Dr. Frankenstein's daughter like the title, says. Instead, it's Victor Frankenstein's granddaughter. I really don't get, how the people that title this movie can be that forgetful of who Maria is supposed to be. Maria mention that she's Victor's granddaughter throughout the film. Seems a pretty obvious error. The film is nowhere near the levels of agile as Mary Shelly's novel. There is no deep themes of life, consciousness and the will to existence. Don't expect, the creature to question, why he was made or how playing God might be wrong, or right. The movie is pretty dimwit like Hank's mind. It doesn't even have that semi-smart corny cheesy charm that most of the various film adaptations of Mary Shelley's novel has. I was just hoping it was somewhat near the Universal's Frankenstein films of 1930s. I give the movie, some credit, I like how they help introduce the name 'Igor' to the horror genre. While, it might seem odd that the monster was named 'Igor' in this film; since most people, known Igor as the Gothic villain hunchback assistant. Let's remember that Igor hasn't yet, been establish as a stock character. It wasn't until the 1974's film comedy, Young Frankenstein that Igor became a major figure in the Gothic horror lore. Although Dr. Frankenstein had a hunchback assistant in the 1931 film Frankenstein, his name was Fritz. This might be the one of the first Frankenstein's film is honestly have a character named Igor. I dislike that most of the film run-time, in this, wasn't even Frankenstein related. It's like the movie was being made into a plain western, and then at the last second, they add some Frankenstein things to spice it up. It takes nearly forever in pacing for Jesse James to honestly meet Dr. Frankenstein. Lots of tedious and incredibly boring material that was stretched out to nearly an hour and a half of run time. Another fault in the film is the force love angle between Juanita, Jesse, and Maria. None of them, have any chemistry with each other. The music and sound are laughable. I found the Dumb-dumb-Dumb, very funny. The picture and audio on this Alpha Video DVD release looks decent, enough, seeing that the film is in the public domain. Overall: The movie isn't as bad, as I have anticipated. I knew, coming in that it was going to be B film, so it kinda didn't have much high hopes. It did exceeded my minimal low expectations. It was indeed schlocky and campy fun.

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.

And Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter is quite awful, though not quite so much as the title suggests.Many younger viewers have tried to figured out why anyone would want to produce a picture so bad. Well, back in the days before women were easy, a wicked, licentious teenage guy would take his girl friend to see Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter at a drive-in theater and spend the entire 88-minute running time attempting without success to get the virtuous lass's girdle off. Nobody paid much attention to the movie, because he was too busy exercising his crude version of charm, and she was too busy fending it off. In case suspicious parents asked what the movie was about, the naughty kids wouldn't have to get any farther than the title to make mommy and daddy decide they didn't really want to know. Simple, huh?Why any allegedly mature adult, such as yours truly, would by a DVD copy of such a movie at this late date beggars comprehension. Not a good Western, not a good horror movie. One of this dud's few saving graces was the performance of Narda Onyx as Maria Frankenstein, said descendant of the old monster-maker. The sexy, middle aged actress of Estonian origin plays the villainous countess with grand, over-ripe exuberance, sort of like a female version of Vincent Price. She almost makes watching this turkey worthwhile. But not quite.This picture is only for the following types: 1) fans of John Lupton, of which, astonishingly, there seem to be a few. 2) those with more money than common sense, with whom yours truly apparently may be grouped. 3) rock-hard desperate insomniacs.Others should avoid Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter as they would getting behind an old dame with a fist-full of coupons in a check-out line.

Just watched this what I'm sure was a "Drive-In"-type B/Z-grade movie directed by the one and only William "One-Shot" Beaudine. Technically, the woman of the title is the late doctor's granddaughter but never mind. Anyway, in this hybrid western/horror movie, Jesse James is once again on the run from the marshal and stumbles on a Mexican gypsy family whose grown daughter decides to ally herself with Jesse. Jesse himself has a friend who got wounded in the gun battle with the marshal so he comes to an abandoned mission where a couple of doctors have the cure. Guess who one of them is? Anyway, while what I just described was indeed ridiculous, the way it was presented was pretty entertaining especially whenever certain lines or deliveries of them were enacted as either too much on emphasis or just too straight. Anyway, one of the players, Jim Davis, acquits himself quite nicely as the marshal with that familiar authoritative voice that served him well previously in those Republic oaters and later on as Jock Ewing on the original "Dallas". So he definitely gets a pass here even though he was obviously slumming. So, yeah, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter is worth a look if you're looking for a real howler. P.S. I previously saw Davis as Frank James in Bob Hope's comedy Alias Jesse James. Obviously, that would be the only connection these different movies would have in common with each other.