Are you sick of these movies yet? Lol, I hope not because it's gonna be a while before we get back to watching Criterion quality films, and I did find a good one tonight through diligent research : "Frankenstein's Daughter"(1958), a combination horror/sci-fi that delivered the scares and the weirdness, while adding a dash of good old teenage '50s fun.
Sandra Knight (Jack Nicholson's first wife) stars as "Trudy", the young niece of "Professor Morton" (Felix Locher), a research scientist studying the healing properties of the drug Degenerol. He believes it can reverse the aging process, among other miracles. He has an assistant, Dr. Oliver Frank (Donald Murphy), who by all appearances seems to share the professor's humanitarian goals. What the professor doesn't realise is that Dr. Frank - whose name has been shortened, haha - has built a second, secret laboratory behind the wall of the professor's workshop. Frank is carrying out his own research in that lab, with the help of the estate's gardener, a creepy old guy in a ballcap who leaves and enters through a revolving bookcase.
As the movie opens, Trudy's girlfriend Suzy (Sally Todd) is coming over for a visit, but before she can get to the door, she is startled by the sight of a Hideous Creature coming down the sidewalk, in broad daylight! How many Monsters walk around in the daytime? That takes nerve, man. Anyhow, this monster is wearing a dress and has the figure of a girl, but it's face is horribly disfigured. Suzy screams and pounds on Trudy's front door, pleading to be let in. When she reports what she just saw, Trudy says "that's strange.....I was just having a dream of the same thing, only I was the monster". The girls talk about how weird it all is. how terrifying, but then their boyfriends arrive for a double date and the conversation is cast aside. Trudy's boyfriend Johnny (John Ashley) in particular doesn't believe in Monsters. He chides her, and Suzy, for telling tall tales.
Back inside the Secret Lab, Dr. Frank is working on his latest experiment. He wants to take up where his grandfather, a famous surgeon, left off. However, he becomes infuriated when the creepy gardener calls him by his full name. "My name is Frank! Do you understand that? Never call me by that other name"! He then asks the gardener if he has procured the needed "part" for the evening's operation. The gardener opens a cloth to reveal a bloody hand. Dr. Frank explodes once again. "Is that all you brought?! I specifically told you to bring the head"! To which the gardener explains, "I'm sorry Doctor, but there were too many cars on the road. Several ran over the body before I could get to it. This was all that was left".
Ahem!........(cough, cough).......it appears that the Doc and his assistant are using car accidents as the source for their body parts (yikes!). Can't they just get 'em from the morgue like Frank's grandfather did? I mean, how uncouth! Well anyhow, on the following night, Dr. Frank sends the gardener back out to obtain the necessary head, and he returns a while later with the specimen from a young woman.......Suzy!, who's been murdered by Dr. Frank after refusing his advances.
I've got to butt in here to say that as sick as this all sounds (holy smokes!), it doesn't play that way onscreen, thank goodness. It's all very Frankenstinian ("don't ever call me by that name"!) but in a B-Movie way.
Now where was I? Oh yes - at first Dr. Frank is once again upset with the old gardener. "This is a girl! My Creation is male! How to you expect me to put this head on that body"? The gardener is sheepish. "I'm sorry Dr. Frank, but there were no accidents tonight. She was the only available specimen, and look! She is in perfect condition"! The Doc considers this for a moment, and then it strikes him : "Yes! Yes! This is perfect. A female brain will be more compliant and less aggressive than a male's! That was my grandfather's downfall, his Creature was uncontrollable. But we will have success by using the mind of a female"!
A sly smile crosses the gardener's face as he says, "Ahh......Frankenstein's Daughter"!
"I told you never to call me that! But yes.......she will be my creation so I suppose you could say that of her".
Soon, they will bring their new Monster to life after a lengthy operation and some huge doses of electricity. I've gotta say, this is one of the scariest looking Frankensteins ever, except that it doesn't look the slightest bit female and in no way resembles the former character of Suzy. According to IMDB, the make-up man was never given a copy of the script, and had no idea the Monster was supposed to be female. He went ahead a made an ultra-ugly Frankenstein, whose face looks like raw hamburger, and because the producers were running low on money they had to go ahead and use it, even though it was the wrong gender. But no matter. It's scary and that's all that counts. Best of all, it's compliant. This is 1958, long before Women's Lib and the modern era of equality, so you'll just have to accept a Frankenstein who obeys orders because it has a female brain (hey, I didn't write the script...) :)
Because it obeys him, Dr. Frank gets the idea to use his Monster to get rid of the Professor, whose do-gooder ways are beginning to get on his nerves. With the Prof out of the picture, Dr. Frank will be able to put the moves on Trudy, maybe do a little experimenting on her as well. This will result in a scene like we saw at the start of the movie, where a girl in a skirt with a disfigured face will run loose all over town, alarming the citizenry. Then the police will become involved, which will spell the beginning of the end for Dr. Frank. He won't go down without a fight, however, and he's got Suzy the Monster to back him up.
"Frankenstein's Daughter" is a winner on all counts. It has the professional look of a film shot at a studio and all the technical aspects are sound. So often, with the more amateurish pictures, we've had a passable movie degraded by poor lighting or sloppy editing. Not so here. One fan on IMDB called this film "The King of the B-Horror Movies", and he's not inaccurate. It's definitely as well made as any of the classic B scare flicks, so I suppose it depends on your preference, but I found it excellent in every respect. Donald Murphy is diabolical yet suave as "Dr. Frank", and young Sandra Knight (18 years old here) is perfect as a fresh-faced 1950s good girl. Makes me wonder what she ever saw in Jack Nicholson, haha, but then she divorced him in 1968, probably when he was turning into a wild man. There's also an extended back yard party scene in the movie, featuring a late-50s hepcat band complete with bongo player. We have another good script with subplot layers, including one involving the Professor and his need for more Degenerol. And toward the end, we have the police investigation, so "Frankenstein's Daughter" is the full package. It gets Two Big Thumbs Up, our third highest rating, and is not to be missed as far as our current theme is concerned. The print I saw was perfect. //////
Things are heating up here in The 'Ridge. We finally got rid of the heavy overcast layer that had been sitting over the Valley like a lid for the past three weeks. Now it's gonna get hot, hot, hot, with temps into the upper 90s by the weekend, and plenty o' sunshine. Now if there was only a hiking trail available, I'd be all set.
See you tonight at the Usual Time. Stay well.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
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