Almost Worthless: Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter

Remember the glory days of Hollywood, when studios made quality films instead of relying on cheap tricks like sequels and remakes? I don't. That's because it never existed. For every classic, there are many more truly terrible movies that no one remembers. It's probably true that back in cinema's blossoming years between the 1930's and 1960's, there weren't as many sequels and feature-film remakes that there are today. There wasn't as huge a pool of movies to draw from in the first place. However, one gimmick that has not survived into the twenty-first century is the "meet/versus" movie. The concept is simple: take two profitable characters and put them together.

This mainly pertains to the prolific meeters Abbott and Costello, who have met Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Mummy, and Captain Kidd, just to name a few. They did it in the name of comedy, which cuts them some slack, but it's still stupid. On the "versus" side, King Kong battled Godzilla while Billy the Kid and Frankenstein both fought Dracula on separate occasions. Even Frankenstein's daughter got to meet someone. That someone was, logically, Jesse James. The blessed union was created in 1965 by director William Beaudine.

First of all, we have to keep in mind that Frankenstein was the doctor who created the monster. Most of the Frankenstein movies used it as the name of the monster himself, so I thought maybe this one did the same. Alas, it does not. Frankenstein's daughter is not monster spawn. I'm already disappointed.

Maria is also not Frankenstein's daughter. Technically, she's probably the daughter of someone with the last name "Frankenstein", but the Dr. Frankenstein is her grandfather. Neither is her assistant the husband/lover/pining friend I thought he was at first. He is her brother. It's a little odd that she calls her brother "darling" but they're Viennese so maybe it's different in their culture. The remarkable age difference between them doesn't keep them from their involvement in a classic case of sibling rivalry: Big brother is sabotaging Little Sister's attempts creating her own slave.

Speaking of cultures, we also have a Mexican family with a daughter named Juanita who slips in and out of her accent as easy as her fiesta-style blouse slips off her shoulder. Juanita needs to stop Maria's experiments, which cost the village its children, including Juanita's brother.

She's lucked out, though, because Maria no longer wants a child for her research. I wonder who will be the big, strong man she decides to use in her experiment?

Here's another disappointment: It's not Jesse James.

To be honest, this movie has a lot of potential. If you were to change the main characters’ names so they weren’t specifically Jesse James and Frankenstein’s (grand)daughter, you would be left with a western/horror combination, which is a concept movies don't often explore. Take the basic plot of this movie: two outlaws are on the run. One gets shot and obviously needs medical help. The only doctors who aren’t connected to the law are a beautiful but eccentric scientist and her brother. She agrees to treat the wounded friend without notifying anyone of their whereabouts if they agree to cooperate with her and her scientific studies. Now if this was done with the right script, the right director, and the right tone, it could be something really cool.

Unfortunately, none of those things are right in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter. It’s not a good movie, but it’s not bad enough to be funny. The title just doesn’t deliver its promise of campy fun. I can only hope the people involved had intended on making a better movie and the studio forced them into making something they thought would be more marketable. There can be no other explanation. Why else would anyone take the bizarre pairing of Jesse James and Frankenstein and play it straight? It’s one big letdown that is not worth a dollar on its own. The DVD is a double feature, though, so maybe the second movie will make up for it.