Frankenstein's Daughter

Frankensteins Daughter is one of the greatest b horror movies of all time.It has two of the ugliest, scariest monsters ever.The murder scenes are great. Donald Murphy is great as the mad scientist. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants. I thought the music scenes were terrific, typical 50,s. A great escape. If you want horror, laughs and an absolutely fun ending to your saturday night check out Frankensteins Daughter.

For many years people derided this film as the worst Frankenstein movie ever made. Of course that was before things like FRANKENSTEIN '80 or FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS came along. I grew up watching this film on "Chiller Theatre" and now I have a beautiful sepia tinted print on video so it is indeed a pleasure of mine, and not a guilty one either. I like this film and I am not ashamed to admit it, so there! What a cast, Felix Locher, real life father of actor Jon Hall, as a dedicated but misguided scientist; Donald Murphy as yet another "last of the Frankenstein's" (the third one the movies offered us in the space of a single year!); Harold Lloyd Jr as the comedy relief, Sandra Knight (future Mrs. Jack Nicholson) as both the girl in distress AND the fill-in monster; and last but not least John Ashley as the hero. Two men played the title monster: mostly he (she?, it?) was played by Harry Wilson, former stunt double for Wallace Beery (you can see Mr. Wilson briefly in THEM! in the hospital scene. He is in the bed next to the one occupied by Olin Howland) and for the scene where the Monster is on fire stuntman George Barrows takes over. Ms. Knight is memorable as the crusty faced, bug eyed monster who dominates the first half of the movie. If she had just gone on one date with Mr. Murphy perhaps he would not have experimented on her; but of course the plot had to advance. It's the title monster that gets me. An ostensibly male body with the severely mutilated head of a female hit-and-run victim grafted on; talk about gender confusion! Mr. Murphy gets a classic bit of male chauvinism when he declares "The brain of a female is conditioned to a man's world, therefore it takes orders." Wanna bet? The first thing the monster does after it wakes up is wander out on its own and kill someone! It is polite enough to knock when it returns home at least. You have to love the party scene. Harold Lloyd Jr (backed by Paige Cavanaugh and his Trio, a jazz combo trying to ease into rock and roll) sings "Special Date" and "Daddy Bird" and nearly steals the second half of the movie. Oh, and for your trivia folder, that burned face makeup on Mr.Murphy that was immortalised in the opening credits of "Chiller Theatre" was accomplished in less than 5 minutes thanks to some clear gel, lens paper, and chocolate syrup. Director Richard Cunha made other features, but I do believe this is his best.

Along with SHE DEMONS, this is one of those movies that used to scare the heck out of me as a kid in Brooklyn watching Chiller Theater on Channel 11 on Saturday nights. It was part of the new hybrid of films that came in during the mid-to-late 1950s, horror movies aimed at a teenaged audience. Movies like FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER were of the low-budget 'schlock' variety, made on shoe-string budgets by poverty-row independent studios. Now, as an adult, it's fun to pop these movies in and have a good laugh at the sometimes over-the-top performances cheesy sets and 'special' effects.

Watching the movie this time, I was aware of its incredibly slow pacing, which seemed to be exacerbated by the incredible awful performance of Felix Locher as Carter Morton. He seems to be reading his lines phonetically off of cue cards, as though he's never seen them before in his life! I don't mean to speak ill of the dead, but I'm sure his is the WORST performance I've seen in ANY film, ANYWHERE, EVER!!!! He's so bad that he makes everyone else look brilliant!

This film has several 'horrors' on offer - the two 'monsters,' Locher's performance, and two dreadful teenage musical numbers. Take your pick!

Well, words are hard to come up with to describe this routine premised monster film of the 50's. A descendant of the late Victor Frankenstein, his son Oliver to be exact, is hiding his identity and working as a lab assistant for a kindly scientist. The scientist is working on something beneficial to mankind, whilst his assistant secretly works his own experiments on his benefactor's niece. These experiments hideously disfigure her face and cause her to walk the streets scaring people at night. But soon we see that all this is really secondary to Oliver's real plans of recreating life...keeping the family tradition alive so to speak. With the aid of a disgruntled gardener related to Igor(or someone like that), Ollie and friend end up killing people and fusing dead body parts with the end result being the creation of a barely woman-like played by man being. Ollie is not just worried about creating life, however. He is a randy sort of chap who has the hots for the delectable niece and then her also delicious friend, played by playmate Sally Todd.

The rest of the film is how he is discovered by the niece and her boyfriend, with some implausible and disgusting music sequences thrown in. The acting is decidedly over the top by most concerned. Donald Murphy terrifically hams it up as Ollie. John Ashley is painful to watch as the boyfriend. Saying he has limited acting ability would be an understatement! Notwithstanding the complicated, highly ridiculous plot, the hammy performances, the cheap sets, the bizarre make-up, this is a fun one to watch. It grabs you early, has some fun sequences, and some lovely, lovely heavenly bodies to feast your eager eyes on.

I have seen the majority of Frankenstein movies and this is nothing like any of them. It's very similar to lots of other movies though. The end was ridiculous but it's still a decent Stein movie.