Topics pdmovies. 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. You can find out more about this movie on its IMDB page.
They shot this in just eight days. It's not a perfect film by any means, but I give them credit for making it. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses.
It appears your browser does not have it turned on. Please see your browser settings for this feature. EMBED for wordpress. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Usage Public Domain. On the DVD that I just viewed, one of the extras is a running commentary track by Joe Bob Briggs, and it is both highly informative and extremely funny; better than anything one could hope to hear on MST3K.
The man is a real treasure for the 'psychotronic' film fanatic, and makes this DVD something special. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. This is great. The overbearing bitch daughter of Frankenstein wants a strong man for her hideous experiments in human subjugation. Perfectly understandable. Enter Jesse James and his stupid bodybuilding sidekick and you have the perfect setup. There's no need to wonder what Madame Frankenstein would have actually done with the bulging baldy she creates if she was given half a chance.
Amazingly, this one gets dead serious after the title card; all part of it's charm. Veteran filmmaker William Beaudine, with movies under his belt, directed this dreary, low-budget, drive-in oater without much flair.
Beaudine and scenarist Carl Hittleman go to absurd lengths to give the preposterous plot what if Jesse James tangled with Frankenstein's daughter a plausible set-up. Our notorious heroine and her elderly assistant have fled Germany to conduct their abominable experiments in the relative isolation of the old Southwest in a converted monastery.
Film theorists will have a field day with the metaphorical implications of Frankenstein renovating a Catholic monastery. Maria Frankenstein longs to follow in her dastardly daddy's footsteps, but the Mexican peasants nearby don't make good guinea pigs. They have a nasty habit of dying on her. Interestingly enough, Frankenstein's daughter relocated to the American West to take advantage of the frequency of lightning. Anybody who has heard the commentary track on the Kurt Russell movie 'Tombstone' may recall the director commenting on the abundance of lightning on their movie set in Arizona, so 'Jesse James' contains a modicum of plausibility.
The infamous outlaw is trying to lay low when he hooks up with Butch Curry and the Wild Bunch. Obviously, Butch Curry is Butch Cassidy, but the producers must have felt that one real-life outlaw was sufficient. During an abortive stagecoach robbery, Jesse's partner Hank catches a slug in the shoulder, and Jesse takes him to the House of Frankenstein to get patched up.
Naturally, evil Maria takes them in, because muscle-bound Hank qualifies as the perfect specimen for her blasphemous experiments. See what I mean about the bedrock of plausiblity?
This horror horse opera appears to have been shot on a shoe-string budget, since Beaudine stages the action largely in master shots. A mustached John Lupton makes a bland Jesse James. Other than an accurate alias, Jesse's character has been white-washed beyond recognition, and he utters lines about himself that only a censor would pen to dissuade anybody from following in his footsteps.
After Hank's transformation to Igor, the camp factor in the action picks up, but there is simply not enough camp to keep this western fired up. Not as hilariously awful as you might imagine, but nevertheless this hybrid-genre hokum is tame, without fireworks. Maria dons a multi-colored G. At one point in the film, she refers to herself as Frankenstein's granddaughter.
The producers really should have made up their minds. If there is anything truly execrable about this superficial, saddle-sore sagebrusher, scrutinize the long shots of Frankenstein's monastery: it's an obvious matte painting! Maria Frankenstein is a hoot as a character. In a lackluster cast, veteran character actor Jim Davis of 'Dallas' fame stands out as a stalwart lawman, while long-time heavy Rayford Barnes provides the most excitement as he tries to collect the reward on Jesse's head.
With a title like this, the audience is being 'put on' before the first frame of the film is seen. And, if you don't like being the brunt of the joke, you ain't gonna have anything good to say about this flick - not that there's anything good to say if it were called Gone With The Wind. Stetson's off to whoever came up with the combination, let alone had the gumption to try to depict the two on the same celluloid - like Billy the Kid and Dracula, which proves that, if you don't get it right the first time, you probably won't get it right the SECOND time, either.
If you're like me, you'll take in this movie just to find out HOW the two get together and HOW a monster fits in there.
All of the other elements are immaterial, which is important, 'cause they all contribute laughably to this effort. If that's your intention with your dime and your time - and you're easily amused - you MAY be able to tolerate this epic.
Thought dead, Jesse James joins the Wild Bunch! 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. However, it's a lot of kookie fun. 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 '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! 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. This was much more entertaining than I expected.
The overacting is in a class of its own. The actress who plays Frau Frankenstein chews up the scenery, but the actress who plays Juanita is even more over the top. The wide-eyed reaction shots are beyond what you could expect from even the worst street mime. The fact that her makeup was applied with a wide-tip Sharpie helps. And the vengeful cowboy is no slouch either when it comes to hamming it up.
The production values are obviously not high-quality, but better than you'd expect thanks to getting the lab equipment from the original Frankenstein films. The Frankenhouse is the absolutely worst matte painting that I have ever seen.
Cal Bolden is everything that you could want in a giant, zombie, muscle slave. When Frau F says, 'Igor, go to your room! I watched it without Mr. Briggs commentary and had a blast. Both films were shot in eight days at Corriganville Movie Ranch and at Paramount Studios in mid; both were the final feature films of director William Beaudine. Sometime in the early s, Dr Frankenstein's evil granddaughter Maria has moved to the American West with her brother Rudolph, in order to use the prairie lightning storms in her experiments on immigrant children snatched from a dying town.
Maria is very much in charge, killing the children and replacing their brains with artificial ones, intending to revive them as her slaves. Rudolph, however, is reluctant to help his sister, but is too afraid of her to do otherwise. After a number of failures owing to Rudolph secretly poisoning the victims as soon as his sister revives them , they are finding it increasingly difficult to hide the trail of bodies.
Two gunslingers come to town, Jesse James, the infamous outlaw, who has actually survived his reported killing on April 3, , and Hank Tracy, a dimwitted brute that Jesse uses as his henchman.
However, a member of the gang, Butch's own brother Lonny, decides to go to the sheriff and let him know about the plot in exchange for becoming his deputy and claiming the reward for James' capture.
As the robbery begins, the sheriff and his men shoot the two remaining members of the Wild Bunch and seriously wound Hank. Jesse and Hank escape and stop at the Lopez's campout to tend to Hank's wound and sleep until the morning.
During the middle of the night, Juanita wakes up Jesse and Hank and leads them back to town to the Frankensteins' house to fix up Hank despite her parents forbidding her to go back there. Maria agrees to help, and even covers for her guests when the sheriff and Lonny come around looking for them, but her actual plan is to use Hank as another one of her experiments.
After a failed attempt to seduce Jesse, Maria sends him to the town pharmacist with a note, then begins operating on Hank, giving him an artificial new brain and bringing him back to life. Rudolph tries to poison Hank, now called Igor, but Maria catches him this time and orders her new monster to strangle her brother.
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