Cheap Lady Frankenstein (DVD) (Mel Welles, Aureliano Luppi) Price

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Customer Reviews of Lady Frankenstein

Not bad, decent movie, fairly revealing movie version.
This variation, on the Mary Shelly novel, has Joseph Cotton (always strange, remember Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte) and Sara Bay (who has some quite revealing scenes, and there's also some other revealing scenes, of uncredited actresses. This also has some mild language, for the time, which was the '70's. It wasn't too bad, not as "schlocky" as one might think. It also features, as a Captain, police officer; guess it runs in the family, Mickey Hargitay, that's right, Mariska's father [she who plays on Law and Order SVU]. Produced by Alpha video (not the company listed here, but there's no listing for that version and I wanted to review it, so there).

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Wacky Italian Take on the Frankenstein Legend
Fresh out of medical school and eager to prove her abilities as a "surgeon," Dr. Frankenstein's daughter (Rosalba Neri) sets out to build her own monster-to kill the one created by her late father, which is now running amok terrorizing the locals. As if that weren't goofy enough, she decides to construct her monster using the brain of her father's assistant (whom she's just married) and the body of the hunky village idiot. It's a movie that could only be made in Italy and only in the '70s. Recommended for Euro-horror fanatics only.

The picture and sound quality on this DVD could be better, but I've definitely seen worse on bargain-priced DVDs like this. The print that was used is scratchy at times, but the colors are still fairly vibrant and sound is generally quite good. All in all, this DVD is a pretty good buy at this price.

Two out of five stars.

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Baron Frankenstein, you've got a lovely daughter
Lady Frankenstein, somewhat to my surprise, comes off as the most creative if not the best retelling of the done-to-death Frankenstein theme I have ever seen. It has its logical inconsistencies, at least one annoying and irrelevant character, and a thoroughly cheesy-looking monster, but I cannot but love this movie. Maybe it's the European ambiance that appeals to me so much; maybe it's the interesting little parallel contradictions (a term that makes little sense, I admit, but seems to encapsulate my thoughts) with Shelley's story and the original 1931 movie version. Probably, though, it is Rosalba Neri (going by the name of Sara Bay) in her role of Frankenstein's daughter. I don't have to tell you that I never really expected to find myself watching a Frankenstein movie with the words "Man, she's hot" constantly forming on my lips. As you might have guessed by the lead actress' name, Lady Frankenstein is an Italian horror film released in 1971 with the title La Figlia Di Frankenstein. Its look and feel is very much in line with the Hammer horror films that were all the rage back then. I'm still a little unsure how Joseph Cotton found his way in the picture, but maybe it had something to do with the American director Mel Welles. In any event, the casting of Cotton in the role of Dr. Frankenstein is a little weird, but he does a fine job in the role.

Forget some of what you know about the Frankenstein legend. In this film, Frankenstein, assisted by the non-hunchbacked Dr. Charles Marshall (Paul Muller), gives life to his monster only days after his daughter (Rosalba Neri) has returned home with her own surgical degree and "radical" medical ideas. Naturally, the monster kills Frankenstein right there in the lab and escapes into the night. The monster, incidentally, is quite silly-looking, looking like nothing so much as one of the Metaluna creatures from This Island Earth whose face, unfortunately for him, sort of caught on fire during the lightning strike that gave him life (not to mention super-human strength). Since his criminal brain sadly has a damaged hypothalamus, there is really nothing for him to do but wander the countryside killing people, especially if he catches them fornicating in the woods, before settling down to even the score with the men responsible for his new despicable life.

Daughter Tanya will not let her father's lifetime dream end in such a dishonorable way as this, so she claims her father was killed by a robber. Her idea is to create a second monster to be the executioner of the first monster, but then love and sex and just a little bit of beautiful evil fall in the mix, setting the stage for a conclusion that augurs well for no one. Torch-bearing villagers naturally demand their rightful place in the denouemont, and the ending, when it comes, is quite sudden and quite tragic, at least to my Rosalba Neri-enchanted eyes. There is some nudity in this picture, which is surely something you don't see in your average Frankenstein movie, and I for one definitely have no problem with it, especially since it plays delightfully off of the somewhat Victorian Gothic Euro-horror look and feel of the movie. This is basically a four-star movie that more than earns its fifth shiny star from this reviewer as a result of Rosalba Neri's captivating performance.