• Directed by William Beaudine
• Written by Carl Hittleman
• Starring
  • Narda Onyx
  • John Lupton
  • Estelita Rodriguez
  • Cal Bolder

Jesse James, meet Frankenstein’s daughter.
“Charmed, ma’am.”
“Likewise, I’m sure.”

No, they didn’t stop there. But the final ninety-minute product is no less predictable or pedestrian. (Can I use that word to describe a movie in which everyone rides horses?)

We open, naturally enough, on a dark and stormy night. An entire town in the unspecified West is clearing out, largely because of the new and ominous occupants of the abandoned mission on the hill overlooking the town: the much-reviled Frankensteins. The last family to leave consists of a mother and father, daughter Juanita (refered to inexplicably by various characters throughout the movie as “the girl Juanita,” despite the fact that actress Estelita Rodriguez looks every one of her thirty-eight years — though I shouldn’t make fun, as she died of influenza within weeks of filming), and son Francisco; they can’t leave yet because Francisco had been working for the Frankensteins like many of the youths of the village and, like others before him, has contracted a mysterious “disease” because of which the Frankensteins won’t let him come home. This, naturally, raises Juanita’s ire and suspicions.

Those fears are obviously justify, as we then meet the Frankensteins: Maria (Narda Onyx) and her milksop brother Rudolph (Steven Geray). (Hee hee hee. “Rudolph Frankenstein.” There’s a name guaranteed to get your ass kicked in the schoolyard.) Maria is obviously wearing the pants here, despite the fact that Rudolph is waaay older than she is, like about thirty years. I should probably mention here that, while Maria is technically “Frankenstein’s daughter,” she is not THE Frankenstein’s daughter, but his granddaughter; apparently the family tendency of Playing In God’s Domain skipped a generation. (Of course, if we’re playing fast-and-loose as to which Frankenstein we actually mean when we say “Frankenstein,” Couldn’t we just refer to Maria herself as “Frankenstein”?) I should also mention a persistent gripe in this movie, to wit, would it have been such a big trial to have Ms. Onyx and Mr. Geray sit in a locked room for about twelve hours alone, speaking their generically-fake German accents at each other, until they had arrived at a consensus of what expatriot Germans should sound like in this movie?

Anyway. The subject of their current experiment is none other than young Francisco, and what an experiment it is. There are those spark-making whirlygigs, and no less than four Jacob’s Ladders in the lab (including one attached to the helmet on Francisco’s head). Heck, we’ve even got neon tube sculptures in evidence! Alas, none of the above helps poor Francisco recover from the BRAIN TRANSPLANT just performed on him. In desperation, Maria instructs Rudolph to get a syringe of digitalis; Rudolph, however, surreptitiously fills the syringe with a generically-labelled “Poison,” and Francisco expires. (Apparently he managed to get Dad’s non-Playing In God’s Domain genes, and wants to keep it that way.) Francisco is now destined to be another casualty of the mysterious “disease” to be planted in their private graveyard. Meanwhile, Maria rants that what they really need is not a skinny teenager to experiment on, but a man — a big, beefy, ox of a man!

That’s a cue for a match-cut if ever I heard one, so that’s what we do — immediately cutting to brawny and shirtless Hank Tracy (Cal Bolder), current partner to Jesse James (John Lupton), engaging in a little boxing match outside a saloon. Hank is indeed big and brawny, and demonstrates that the practice for beefcakes to wax their stomachs and shave their armpits was in full flower in the Old West. We also soon learn that Hank is about as smart as a loaf of Wonder Bread, and the tenor of the performance leads me to believe that a lot of that characterization comes from the actor, not the role.

We also find out that the events are happening in that time period after Jesse was reportedly gunned down with his gang at Northfield, Minnesota, in 1876. (Everyone he trumpets his name to says, “I heard Jesse James got hisself kilt at Northfield.”) In our “real world,” Jesse lay low for three years in Tennessee before putting together one last gang; in movie world, he ends up with his partner somewhere in the West, close enough to the Mexican border for this story to take place. (My sole source of information on Jesse James is the on-line book Jesse James: Riding Hell-Bent for Leather into Legend by Joseph Geringer.) An odd footnote: Scriptwriter Carl Hittleman apparently had Jesse James in his blood, as he previously produced I Shot Jesse James (1949) and The Return of Jesse James (1950).

Anyway. Jesse’s in the vicinity at the beck of Butch Curry, leader of The Wild Bunch — a gang which has been recently reduced by a virulent case of lead poisoning to three persons: Butch, his weaselly brother Lonny (Rayford Barnes), and Pete. Don’t worry about getting to know Pete. (Oddly enough, Barnes’ next movie role was in 1969’s unrelated The Wild Bunch.) It’s a simple job they’re coming together for: A statecoach heist in the nearby town. Everything’s copacetic, except for the fact that Jesse and Hank’s presence will cut into Lonny’s share of the take…

…so like weasels everywhere, he runs and tattles to the marshall (Jim Davis) about the whole plan to get in on the $10,000 reward for Jesse. (Another odd footnote: Jim Davis previously played Jesse’s brother Frank in 1959’s Alias Jesse James.) The upshot, naturally, is that the simple little heist goes afoul. Butch and Pete end up dead, and Hank takes a bullet before Jesse hauls him onto his horse and they ride off.

After riding for hours, the two outlaws meet up with Juanita and her family alongside a stream. Juanita helps Jesse care for Hank, but “he’s lost a lot of blood” (uh huh, looks like an entire tablespoon of red Karo syrup dribbled on his shirt). In a fit of wilfullness, Juanita defies her parents and takes Jesse and Hank back to the village to the Frankensteins because, hey, they’re doctors, right?

After an almost-pointless Indian attack on Juanita (I say “almost” because Jesse’s rescue of her gives him an edge over Hank’s “Florence Nightingale” appeal and drives Juanita into Jesse’s arms), they arrive at the mission and knock at the door. You can imagine the joy in Maria’s face as she takes delivery of one (1) Big Dumb Ox, as requested. Another touch of historical verisimilitude: Jesse introduces himself as “Mr. Howard,” which is the alias he hid under for his three years of retirement after Northfield. Alas, it doesn’t help, as Hank in his delirium reveals their identities to Maria.

Maria is careful to dissuade the marshall and Lonny when they show up on the outlaws’ trail, though the twosome decide to stay in the nearby town to wait for Jesse to turn up. Then for some inexplicable reason, Maria invites Juanita to hang around the mission, both to have her help and to “keep an eye on her.” (Yeah, good plan.) So while Hank recovers, we get two love triangles going on: Hank and Jesse both hanker after Juanita, who only has eyes for Jesse, even though Maria also has her eye set on Jesse. (Need a flowchart? Tough.) Most of the dialogue explaining the above convolutions (except those involving Hank, which of course occur at his sickbed) happen in the garden adjoining the graveyard, and mostly at dusk. This leads to an interesting observation (certainly more interesting than the interpersonal filler going on in the foreground): The “dusk” is accomplished with a camera filter, which is fairly convincing except when the shot wanders upward and we get to see the clear blue sky above the hills. It is precisely at those moments that the cricket sounds on the soundtrack increase — I suppose, an aural cue to compensate for the visual boo-boo.

Finally, having been rebuffed firmly by Jesse, and eager to be about her grandfather’s business, Maria sends Jesse into town with a sealed “prescription” (did envelopes with lickable adhesive exist in the Old West?) which actually informs the druggist that the bearer is Jess James. Despite Juanita’s misgivings, Jesse dutifully goes to town for the prescription. And that night…

…The shaven-headed Hank is brought into the operating room. (Guess he took that bodywaxing thing a bit too far.) Maria has been saving the last of grandfather’s “artificial brains” (a pulsing brain in a tub), and Juanita creeps around, watching through windows, as we cut to the aftermath: shaven-headed Hank, with a stitch line going all the way around his head. Maria has added a new twist: By putting an identical helmet on herself (complete with a Jacob’s Ladder up top), she not only can jumpstart the new brain’s functions, but she can also program it to obey her. (And what’s her first command? “Your new name is Igor!” How I wish I were kidding.)

When Han– uh, Igor does not immediately show signs of life, Maria again demands a syringe of digitalis. (You’d think by now she’d just have a hypo prepared beforehand, but no…) Rudolph tries his old poison trick, but this time she catches him, and they struggle over the syringe. She calls out for Igor to help, and lo! It’s alive! H– Igor gets up and strangles Rudolph to death. Did I mention that Juanita’s been spying on all this?

Next morning, Jesse finally makes it to the druggist’s. As is predictable, the druggist slips out the back to inform the marshall, but instead meets Lonny, who follows him back to the drugstore and tries to collect the reward. Instead, he collects a gutful of lead. Jesse then rides back, to be met halfway by Juanite, who tries to warn him not to return, that Hank is no longer Hank. (She doesn’t say, “Hank is now Igor!”, but I suppose that wouldn’t have helped things.) Jesse rides back, duty-bound, to save Hank, while Juanita rides on to get the marshall.

Naturally, we have a big fight brewing, as Igor tosses Jesse and, later, the Marshall around. Actually, it’s not that exciting a fight; he mostly throttles people, although, thanks to the Hero’s Death Exemption, it takes a lot more effort to kill either Jesse or the marshall than it did Rudolph; his attacks merely leave them unconscious. (But not before Maria can give Jesse the “You and I are not so different” speech. What is it with villains who like to play “compare and contrast”? Just once, I’d like to see the hero give that speech, and the villain writhe in revulsion). Once Juanita tries to come to Jesse’s aid, Maria sics Igor on her — but apparently the filmmakers are postulating that memory and emotion are actually stored in the medulla oblongata, since even with a completely new brain Hank/Igor can’t bring himself to kill Juanita. Instead, he kills Maria. (So end the lives of those who Play In God’s Domain.) He still doesn’t recognize the reviving Jesse, though, so Juanita is forced to blow him away.

Our denouement consists of the “Someday I’ll come for you” speech from Jesse, before he rides off with the marshall. The end.

I suppose if you were a rabid feminist who’s duty-bound to take offense wherever possible (and that’s not some generalization on my part — I’ve met feminists who were like that and feminists who weren’t, and I think the tendency to seek offense is a personality trait separate from feminist philosophy), you could try to paint a picture of the dichotomy between Maria and Juanita as being between Educated Female [bad] and Uneducated Female [good], and then rail against the patriarchy that wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. However, I think to do so would be to overstate the case; Juanita is never shown as being distinctly ignorant — none of the menfolk ever have to tell her how the world works (especially Hank). If you were compelled to use Maria and Juanita as the opposite poles in some dichotomy (and if you’ve got a degree in English Lit, as I do, you instinctively seek out such relationships), I think the best you could do is contrast Europeans [evil] with Natives [good]. Not that Juanita is particulary native, but all Latinos shown are good, honest people, as opposed to white Americans, who are divided between good guys (the marshall), good bad guys (Jesse), bad bad guys (Lonny), and barely animate sides of beef (Hank).

Looking at this movie from a less hoity position, I suppose I can say that the production values are good for the time period and genre — say, one step above an episode of Bonanza (i.e., without the obvious sets standing in for outdoor locations). But the script… It’s not that it’s howlingly bad, it’s just so lackluster. Everything happens as inevitably as falling off a horse (or, at least, as me falling off a horse). Probably what it needed was one of those helmets with a Jacob’s Ladder.

In the final analysis, this one has only stuck around in the collective memory because of the title, and for the fact that it was a double-bill with the same director’s Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966). I guess I’ll have to review that one sometime…

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 8
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 2
• Jacob’s Ladder machines: 4
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek:
  • Cal Bolder (Hank — or Igor, if you prefer) played “Keel” in the classic episode “Friday’s Child”