Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter

With a title like this, the audience is being "put on" before the first frame of the film is seen. And, if you don't like being the brunt of the joke, you ain't gonna have anything good to say about this flick - not that there's anything good to say if it were called Gone With The Wind. But - come on - Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter...what do you expect? We DESERVE a dud if we watch it. Stetson's off to whoever came up with the combination, let alone had the gumption to try to depict the two on the same celluloid - like Billy the Kid and Dracula, which proves that, if you don't get it right the first time, you probably won't get it right the SECOND time, either. If you're like me, you'll take in this movie just to find out HOW the two get together and HOW a monster fits in there. All of the other elements are immaterial, which is important, 'cause they all contribute laughably to this effort. If that's your intention with your dime and your time - and you're easily amused - you MAY be able to tolerate this epic.

Thought dead, Jesse James joins the Wild Bunch (!) for a stagecoach robbery. Double crossed, he escapes an ambush and takes his wounded partner Hank (Harry?) Tracy to the house of Frankenstein's granddaughter for treatment. She instead plans on turning the hulking Tracy into the newest Frankenstein monster.

Not for all tastes, this is actually pretty good if you catch it in the right mood and if you have a sense of humor.

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter is neither the best Jesse James nor Frankenstein movies ever made. However, it's a lot of kookie fun. Also, it's slightly better than the infamous companion film Billy The Kid Versus Dracula.

Under the supervision of of veteran director William Beaudine, this is a pretty even mixture of the old poverty row western and horror films, slathered in a thick coat of 1960's color and shot in widescreen.

Giving credit where credit is due - unlike many other Jesse James flicks, this one actually cast an actor that looks like James!

This is great. The overbearing bitch daughter of Frankenstein wants a strong man for her hideous experiments in human subjugation. Perfectly understandable. Enter Jesse James and his stupid bodybuilding sidekick and you have the perfect setup. There's no need to wonder what Madame Frankenstein would have actually done with the bulging baldy she creates if she was given half a chance. Amazingly, this one gets dead serious after the title card; all part of it's charm. Joe Bob Briggs hosts the DVD presentation, appropriately and appreciatively.

Of course you can't expect too much from something that proudly presents itself as a low-budgeted hybrid of two entirely different classic film genres and their main icons. Director William Beaudine was clearly exploring the possibilities of exploitation cinema and considered it a great idea to shoot two films back-to-back (the other one being "Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula") that blend legendary horror premises with gunslinger heroes of the Wild Wild West. The result is neither fish nor flesh, but I must admit I expected this film to be a whole lot worse. "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" is a bunch of silly nonsense, but it's fairly well made and the acting performances are far superior than you usually see in this type of productions. The title is wrong, for starters, since it isn't really Frankenstein's daughter Jesse James encounters, but his granddaughter. She – Maria - emigrated towards the States, along with her cowardly brother, to continue her experiments of resurrecting lifeless human tissue. Their unsuccessful tests already wiped out an entire community of poor farmers that lived around their castle and only the adorable Juanita and her family are left. Meanwhile, the wanted outlaw Jesse James and his strong but simple-minded sidekick Hank escape from an ambush and seek refuge in Lady Frankenstein's castle. She sees in the severely wounded Hank the ideal guinea pig for her demented experiments, while Jesse falls in love with the poor farmer's daughter and battles some bounty hunters. There are absolutely no horrific sequences in the script – Frankenstein's victims are resurrected by placing colorful motorcycle helmets on their heads – and the western aspects aren't exactly spectacular neither. All of a sudden, Jesse James is a noble outlaw who steals from the rich to give to the poor (give me a break!) and risks his own freedom to go out and buy medication for his dying partner. Right! Narda Onyx is a joy to observe as the mad scientist who clearly has no idea what she's doing and the Cuban born actress Rodriguez is sweet in her role of Jesse James' love interest. She died prematurely in the same year as the film's release.

Legendary outlaw of the Old West Jesse James, on the run from Marshal MacPhee, hides out in the castle of Baron Frankenstein's granddaughter Maria, who proceeds to transform Jesse's slow-witted pal Hank into a bald zombie, which she names Igor.

This film is generally considered to be pretty awful and has a fairly low rating on IMDb (though I have seen worse ratings). I am not going to dispute this by saying it is a forgotten masterpiece, but really... it may not be as terrible as you might want to believe.

The acting is pretty bad and the plot is a bit questionable, but there is something to be said about campy movies. They have their place. And, really, how many horror westerns are there? Not as many as there probably could be. This is a bit of ground breaker.