LADY FRANKENSTEIN (1971)

Directors: Mel Welles, Aureliano Luppi (uncredited)

Writers: Dick Randall, Mel Welles, Edward Di Lorenzo

Producer: Mel Welles

Cast: Rosalba Neri (as Sara Bay), Joseph Cotton, Paul Muller, Mickey Hargitay, Herbert Fux, Marino Masé (uncredited), Riccardo Pizutti (as Peter Whiteman), Renate Kasché (as Renata Cash), Lorenzo Terzon (as Lawrence Tilden). Ada Pometti (as Ada Pomeroy), Gaultiero Rispoli (as Richard Beardley), Joshua Sinclair (as Johnny Loffrey), Andrea Aureli (as Andrew Ray), Petar Martinovic (as Peter Martinov), Adam Welles, Herb Andress (uncredited), Romano Puppo (uncredited), Allesandro Perrella (uncredited), Ferruccio Fregonese (uncredited) 

In nineteenth-century Europe, Tania Frankenstein (Rosalba Neri) has finished her medical studies and returns home to her father, Baron Frankenstein (Joseph Cotton). Tania is now a licensed surgeon and wishes to collaborate with her father on his medical experiments. The Baron is on the verge of completing his life’s work to endow life to a being (Petar Martinovic) he has assembled from pieces of various human cadavers. When the Baron brings his creation to life, it immediately kills him and wanders off. Tania carries on her father’s work by creating a second creature to destroy the first. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

In 1957, Britain’s Hammer Films had galvanized the horror genre with the mammoth jolt of The Curse of Frankenstein. With their bold color emphasizing bright red blood and warm, creamy cleavage, Hammer gained immediate notoriety and became the international brand for horror.

However, by the '70s, the Gothic horror of Britain’s Hammer Films was becoming all too familiar. As films were allowed to become more explicit in their content, Hammer had to follow the trend rather than create one to stay relevant at the box office. Their films became a bit bloodier and a lot more sexual. Those were the contemporary currents animating Italy’s answer to Hammer: Lady Frankenstein.

The title of this film and its tagline (“Only the monster she made could satisfy her strange desires!”) tells us all that we need to know to distinguish this Frankenstein film from those that had gone before. That’s exploitation, folks! All that remains is to see just how far it will go.

Lady Frankenstein checks off all the boxes to make it a sexy variation on the Hammer style Gothic horror film. While it does hold one’s interest with a few good dialogue scenes, monster mayhem, sex, and Rosalba Neri’s sultry beauty, the film’s overall execution is a bit muddled. There are a lot of awkward edits that abruptly cut away from scenes the split second that the action or dialogue is finished. Then there is that final reveal of Tania Frankenstein’s intentions that is supposed to be some sort of surprise betrayal that still has me scratching my head in confusion. Perhaps something was lost in the Italian-to-English translation, but the monster seems just as bewildered as I am. 

As Baron Frankenstein, Joseph Cotton is the big name topping the cast list. At this late point in his career, Cotton had also appeared in a couple of other European fright flick favorites, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and Baron Blood (1972). 

There are a few other familiar faces to fans of Euro-horror in the cast. Herbert Fux has some of the best lines (at least in the English dub) as the drunk and debauched grave robber, Tom Lynch. Paul Muller plays Baron Frankenstein’s assistant, Charles Marshall. Bodybuilder-turned-actor Mickey Hargitay appears as cynical police investigator Harris. Curiously, Marino Masé receives no billing. He plays the important role of Thomas Stack, the slow-witted stable boy that figures prominently in Tania Frankenstein’s plans. 

This film was my introduction to that sexy icon of Italian genre films throughout the '60s and '70s, Rosalba Neri. Her dark beauty would cast a sexual spell on the viewer in any role she played, and that is just what is required in Lady Frankenstein. She is also able to project an obsessive determination and intelligence that makes us believe she is both a siren and a scientist. I can’t be certain, but here she may have played the first character in cinema to orgasm during a sex partner’s murder. 

Aside from the gender switch of the main scientist in this Frankenstein film, the other novel ingredient is the women’s lib sensibility addressed by Tania. She is conscious of her daring in achieving a medical education in a male dominated society. There are some that criticize this film as vilifying a woman for being determined, educated, and sexually aggressive. However, those are exactly the same qualities that Peter Cushing’s amoral portrayal of Baron Frankenstein had in the Hammer Films Frankenstein series. If a man behaving badly can be shown to be the villain, so can a woman; that’s equality. 

Ultimately, Lady Frankenstein is almost entirely motivated by the attention-getting gimmick of a beautiful woman in the role of a sexy mad scientist. If you want to complain that such a character also has to get naked, well, you got me there. Although Peter Cushing is one of my all-time favorite actors, I must admit that Rosalba Neri is much more qualified to ditch her lab smock and play doctor with her creation.

BARON BLOOD (1972)

Director: Mario Bava

Writers: Vincente Fotre, adapted for the screen by William A. Bairn

Producer: Alfredo Leone

Cast: Joseph Cotton, Elke Sommer, Massimo Girotti, Alan Collins aka Luciano Pigozzi, Antonio Cantafora, Nicoletta Elmi, Rada Rasimov, Dieter Tressler, Humi Raho, Rolf Halwich, Gustavo De Nardo, Valeria Sabel, Irio Fantini 

American college student Peter Kleist (Antonio Cantafora) goes to Austria to visit his uncle Professor Karl Hummel (Massimo Girotti) and research his roots. Peter is the descendant of the notorious seventeenth century nobleman Baron Otto Von Kleist. In his day, the terrorized locals knew the sadistic Baron as "Baron Blood." The Baron was supposed to have been destroyed by the curse of Elizabeth Holly, a woman he had put to death as a witch. Peter meets up with Eva Arnold (Elke Sommer), who is assisting on a renovation of the Baron’s castle. The two of them try using an incantation from an old Kleist family parchment to try raising the spirit of Baron Von Kleist.  The incantation seems to work, but they are unable to send the Baron back to his grave.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

Baron Blood was the first film of that Italian maestro of horror cinema Mario Bava that I had seen. I think it is one of his most accessible films to the average viewer, and it is still a favorite for this flashback fanatic. It seems that it is not as revered as many of director Bava’s other works. Some may see it as a retread of familiar images and themes from his earlier efforts, but Bava still manages real gusto with his visuals and has the terrific asset of the castle shooting location in Vienna, Austria.

 

Perhaps the been-there-done-that reaction some have to this film is due to the influences that Bava was channeling into this. Gothic horror had been done to death by Hammer films in England for over a decade at this time, and Bava had already done his own gothic horror projects in the '60s. Bava also seems to be referencing scenes from a few other horror films such as The Leopard Man (1943), The Haunting (1963), and House of Wax (1953).

The story has both the visceral and ethereal aspects of horror that make for a very satisfying mix. This is quite important to lend a bit of dimension to what is a pretty simple story. That is not any sort of criticism, for I think that a simple story well told is often the most effective. As the story plays out in the end, it has a lingering sense of unease due to the supernatural resolution that is accidentally triggered by a potential victim, after a more deliberate attempt to stop the menace fails. The protagonists and the audience are given some knowledge of how to defeat the evil Baron, but implementing that knowledge effectively is still uncertain. Good horror of the supernatural variety has to walk a fine line between the rational and irrational. If the rules are all spelled out, that may be playing fair with the audience, but a little ambiguity goes a long way toward making the audience react at a deeper level to the supernatural. That sense of the unknown and the unfathomable is how most of us relate to the subject.

The other aspect of the story that I really like is the heavy gothic atmosphere infesting the modern day setting. Some have speculated that the Baron (and Bava?) seems to be retaliating against contemporary encroachments upon the old and traditional. It seems fitting that an early kill by the Baron is of someone trying to buy a bottle of soda from a Coke vending machine installed in the Baron’s castle. I suppose I’d also be a bit cross if, after three hundred years with a treasure chest full of gold and pearls, I still didn’t have the correct change for a Fanta Orange.

Elke Sommer is proof positive that the mini-skirt is long overdue for a comeback. Despite being a one-dimensional character, as all the characters are in this film, she is likable and really sells the horror with her terrified reactions.

As Alfred Becker, the millionaire who buys the Baron’s castle during an auction, Joseph Cotton headlines the cast and seems to be relishing every scene that he is in. He made a few other Euro-horrors around this time, and this is probably my favorite role among them. Of course, he also starred in Shadow of a Doubt (1943); the film Alfred Hitchcock considered his favorite among his own works.

Early '70s Euro-horror creepy kid perennial Nicoletta Elmi plays Peter’s little cousin Gretchen. She rather conveniently seems tuned into the spiritual vibe necessary to help our heroes deal with the Baron. She was also in Bava’s previous film A Bay of Blood (1971), aka Twitch of the Death Nerve. 

Another perennial Euro-horror creepy actor is Luciano Pigozzi, aka Alan Collins. He portrays the castle caretaker Fritz as such an obnoxious, cackling cretin that we figure he is deserving of nothing more than adding to the body count. He provides a few surprises.

Rada Rassimov plays the pivotal role of Christine, the psychic and medium that learns how the Baron can be destroyed again from the spirit of the witch that cursed him. Rassimov was also memorable in giallo king Dario Argento’s second film The Cat O’ Nine Tails (1970).

Baron Blood gives this horror hound the grisly gristle that I never tire of gnawing on. It is a favorite course of grue that can be served again and again as prepared by that gothic gourmet Mario Bava.