Lady Frankenstein - 1971

Okay, so while I'm not entering any of the more legitimate Hammer or earlier Frankenstein films onto this site (as of yet, anyway) I'm not going to ignore that character completely, this movie can be considered as the middle part of my Frankenstein trilogy I started with Frankenstein Island and next comes Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter.  This movie was also partly produced by Roger Corman, a man whose name we just won't be able to get rid of in a blog like this one.

Supposedly a feminist sort of vision of Frankenstein, this movie is all about the daughter of Frankenstein, versus say a female version of the monster.  It's a little bit of a confusing title, as when I see Lady Frankenstein I think a female version of the monster itself.  But remember that Frankenstein is actually the name of the monster's creator in the original story, the monster itself has no name.  Thus Lady Frankenstein is actually a correct title.

In the beginning Frankenstein's daughter comes back from medical school, now a surgeon, and wants to help her father out on animal transplants.  There is a criminal that is executed, and soon after the Frankenstein's steal the body for their experimentation purposes.  The monster comes to life as always, but immediately kills father Frankenstein.  It roams free, wandering around killing people.  In the meantime, Frankenstein's daughter seduces beefy manslave Thomas, so that he can be killed with the intention of putting Frankenstein's old assistant's brain in Thomas's body.  Can her reign of terror be stopped, and what of the monster roaming the area killing people?

It's all lots of fun, and there are enough story lines going on at once to keep you watching.  The monster looks really insane in mostly a bad way.  During his animation process, his face randomly catches fire, and so once he's created he looks really facially deformed.

Otherwise he's a decent enough monster but the focus is not on him for most of the film.  We watch the daughter, Tania, and her cold-hearted approach to science.  It's interesting that she never shows surprise, disgust, fear, anything like that concerning the goings-on.  I'd say it's a very good performance, except I kind of doubt it was on purpose.

She just comes off like a total psycho, the kind that doesn't even realize there's something wrong with them.  The actress, Rosalbi Neri, is also really damn hot and has topless scenes aplenty in the film, and that was largely unexpected.  It comes in so late and it's the only thing that would make it R rated, cause the blood is very minimal.  So congrats on getting her bulbous chest in here to jack the rating up, bro.  I like.

In the end it's just another movie throwing the name Frankenstein around to attract viewers to pretty thrown together film, but I do congratulate it on a strong female lead, a commitment to nudity, and a ok enough monster.  It gets the middle road 2.5 stars.