Our little group saw this on our own "Bad Movie Night" and speculated that this was a sly homage to San Francisco's gay community. Certainly there was no obvious reason to film it there, besides the fun involved in careening down Lombard Street between Hyde & Leavenworth (allegedly the crookedest stretch of paved road in the USA) during the chase scene.
Why? Because Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman seem almost disinterested in Dr. Goldfoot's sex-bots at first, and, once they find each other, they hold on to each other for dear life. Vincent Price camping it up in silk smoking jacket doesn't help. All of us viewing in this session were straight, so those of you with acute pre-Stonewall Hollywood Gay-dar should check this out to see if we're just a clueless bunch of breeders. There may even have been clues we missed.
A few things that make us go "Hmmm": Why would someone who obviously has the means to construct an opulent underground lab with fancy decoration and fabulous machinery need to use it to soak rich guys? Why does Igor look and act like just a normal schlub pulled off the street, rather than a revived corpse (did the SFX budget run out after all those gold bikinis)? How does making her scrub the floor punish a robot? (Unless she's Marvin the Paranoid Android.) What ever became of Igor's impersonation of the SIC chief visiting the local department? And why does a movie that advertises "killer sex-bots" have little violence, and essentially no sex, in it -- not even of the off-screen early-60s sex-tease sort?
Aww, so the hell what? IT'S A REALLY STUPID MOVIE ALL ROUND. ***, one of them just because Vincent Price is simply mahvelous.
