Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966)

Director: William Beaudine

Starring: John "I Look Just Like Geoffrey Lewis" Lupton, Narda Onyx, Estelita Rodriguez and Cal Bolder

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: SEE THE GREATEST NAMES IN TERROR HISTORY...IN ONE BIG SHOW!

Plot: 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.

Watch the entire film in shitty fullscreen!

My Rating: 6/10

Would I watch it again? I can sorta see how that could happen.

Do you really need anything more than the title to justify watching this? We didn't. You can watch this online, above, but if you REALLY want to see this (and I know you do), get the widescreen disc with the Joe Bob Briggs commentary. His commentaries are very informative and highly entertaining.

Dr. Maria Frankenstein's last nerdy Mexican beefcake failure.

I LOVE westerns and I LOVE horror and I LOVE it when those two genres are thrown together. I can't actually think of a particularly good one besides HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER but I'll watch every one I come across.

Based on the true events during one week toward the end of Jesse James' outlaw career, JJMFD isn't nearly as bad as its reputation holds. It's actually competently put together. Sure, it's got some unintentionally funny moments but it's also got Jesse James and a descendant of Frankenstein for fuck's sake!!!

We start out with a lot of exposition with the last 3 remaining peasants in town. They're packing it in and it's splitsville. Why? Because their son (and Juanita's brother) has died of a terrible disease; one that many of the youngsters of the village have succumbed to. They suspect foul play from the mad scientists who live in the big mission/castle on the hill above the village. They're right. the evil scientists have been killing young boys in an effort to make their own monster.

GREAT matte work!

Next up we meet Dr. Maria Frankenstein (the original Baron Frankenstein's Grand-Daughter, not daughter as the title suggests) and her brother, Dr. Rudolph Frankenstein. She's the evil one of the pair, wanting to continue in her grandfather's footshteps (I couldn't help the YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN joke ther). So what's in it for her to create her own man? Uh, well, uh, she's fucking horny as hell and she needs someone to take out the trash once in a while. Apparently these two fled Austria because of her experiments and chose to live in Mexico, in a spot near California, because of the seclusion and the fantastic electrical storms which only seem to occur when they're conducting experiments. Funny, that.

Docs Maria und Rudolph

Meet Jesse James (played by John Lupton, a spittin' image of the great character actor, Geoffrey Lewis - I spent half the movie convinced it was Lewis - he's got his mannerisms and everything), a nice guy trying to make a living while on the lam from the coppers. He's organized a fight between his not-so-smart muscle-headed sidekick, Hank, and the saloon keeper's fighter. After Hank kicks the other guy's ass, saloon guy say's nothin' doin'. Not gonna pay. So Jesse does the smart thing, being how he's hidin' from the law and all, and yells out that he's Jesse James and they're gonna settle it with a duel. Yeah, that's fucking smart. Tell the whole damn town you the guy with a $10,000 bounty on your head. The saloon keeper caves in and give Jesse the money. Jesse and Hank go into the saloon to order a steak.

Meet Hank, the stereotype.

And Jesse James - the coolest guy in town!

This is showbiz gold. After an ambush during a stagecoach robbery attempt, Jesse and a wounded Hank are once more on the run and Hank needs medical attention badly. They come across Juanita and her parents on their exodus and Juanita offers to take them to Frankenstein's castle as it's close and they can hide out there. She doesn't want to but Hank could die (HA!) and she's sympathetic to them and now in love with Jesse while Hank is in love with Juanita. I could be in love with Juanita but she overacts enough for the rest of the cast. She does have nice perky Mexi-cans, though. Ahahahahahahaha.

This is Juanita's OMFG face.

Back to the castle, Maria falls for Jesse and needs Hank to be her man-slave. Jesse turns down her advances, pissing her off, so she gives a sealed envelope to Jesse to deliver to the pharmacist in a neighboring town. She licks the envelope to seal it, by the way. You'd think a picture of this quality and with such lofty notions would have know they didn't exist back then. The note instructs the reader that the man standing in front of them is Jesse James and to alert the sheriff.


Now that Jesse's out of the way, Maria gives Hank a haircut and a brain transplant...two bits. Ahahahahaha. She also gives him his new name of Igor and his first order of business - kill Rudolph. It is original, I'll give them that.

She needs to have my babies.

Jesse fights his way out of the pharmacy by killing the toothiest motherfucker in show bidness that set him up with the ambush in the beginning of the picture.


Jesse goes back to take care of Maria but she orders Igor/Hank to subdue him. He's now strapped down to the table to become the third wheel in her orgy fantasy and injected with something nasty to prepare him for the next "experiment". That word is spoken by her as often as the word "operational" is uttered in RETURN OF THE JEDI. The only difference here is it's funny in JJMFD and annoying as hell in ROTJ.


The sheriff from the beginning, who's been looking for Jesse, shows up to save the day. A fight breaks out. Maria gets Igor/Hank to sic the sheriff, knocking him out. Now Maria turns Igor/Hank onto Juanita. He suddenly remembers his love for her (how, we don't know because he recently HAD A BRAIN TRANSPLANT!) and kills Maria instead. Now he's after his old pal Jesse, whom he doesn't remember. Juanita picks up a gun and fires at the brawlers, killing Igor/Hank. I thought it would have been cool for her to have killed both of them but then I remembered that's not how it really happened according to that biography I read on Jesse James back in the 6th grade.

Juanita says her goodbye and Jesse rides away with the sheriff. Everyone lives happily ever after...except, of course, for Jesse James who later will find himself dangling from a rope.





I rather enjoyed it. The performances are fun in a campy way, the camera doesn't just sit still as you'll often find in low budget films. Same thing with coverage shots. Raoul Kraushaar's score is fine for what it is and director Beaudine put it all together to make a fun little harmless western horror picture. He did it again that same year with BILLY THE KID VERSUS DRACULA. I've gotta see that one. John Carradine plays Dracula.

This guy's been directing movies since 1915 and has 367 director credits!!!!!!!!!! I'm impressed. That's just 367 more than I've got behind the camera. 366 if you count that one, a-hem, "art" picture I did back in college. The one where I convinced the girls of the Phi Beta Hot-n-Ready sorority to star in my all-girl re-visioning of Custer's last stand. I played Custer...and I wasn't standing.