''Lady Frankenstein'' is a 1971 Italian

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

directed by

Mel Welles Mel Welles (February 17, 1924 – August 19, 2005) was an American film actor and director. His best-remembered role may be that of hapless flower shop owner Gravis Mushnick in the 1960 low-budget Roger Corman dark comedy, ''The Little Shop of ...

and written by Edward di Lorenzo. It stars

Rosalba Neri Rosalba Neri (born 19 June 1939) is a retired Italian actress. Early life Born in Forlì, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Neri was regarded for her beauty even in youth, winning a beauty pageant when she was still young. Eventually pursuing an acting ca ...

(under the pseudonym Sara Bey),

Joseph Cotten Joseph Cheshire Cotten Jr. (May 15, 1905 – February 6, 1994) was an American film, stage, radio and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of '' The Philadelphia Story'' and ''Sabr ...

Mickey Hargitay Mickey Hargitay (January 6, 1926 – September 14, 2006), born Miklós Karoly Hargitay, was a Hungarian-American actor and the 1955 Mr. Universe. Born in Budapest, Hargitay moved to the United States in 1947 and eventually became a U.S. citi ...

and Paul Müller.

Plot

Somewhere in

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the area' ...

in the 1860s, a trio of

grave robber Grave robbery, tomb robbing, or tomb raiding is the act of uncovering a grave, tomb or crypt to steal commodities. It is usually perpetrated to take and profit from valuable artefacts or personal property. A related act is body snatching, a term ...

s, led by a man named Lynch, deliver a

corpse A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body that is used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Stu ...

to Baron Frankenstein and his assistant Dr. Marshall for obvious reanimation purposes. Baron Frankenstein's daughter Tania arrives from school, having completed her studies in medicine, and is greeted by her father and his young servant, the handsome but mildly intellectually disabled Thomas. Tania reveals to her father that she has always understood his work with "animal transplants" to be a cover for his work reanimating corpses and that she intends to follow in his footsteps and help him in his work. The next day, Frankenstein, Tania, and Marshall witness the

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

of a criminal who is hanged down a

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

. Frankenstein and Marshall both have an eye toward harvesting the criminal's body for their experimentation. Law enforcement agent Captain Harris arrives to harass Lynch at the hanging. Harris claims to be on to Lynch's grave robbing. That evening, having harvested salient body parts, Frankenstein and Marshall successfully reanimate a gruesome giant corpse with a scarred, misshapen head as Tania secretly watches. Almost instantly, however, this monster bear-hugs Frankenstein to death - breaking his back - then walks out of the castle. Tania and Marshall report the murder to Harris but claim that it was a burglar. Harris points out that according to their description, the burglar would be over seven feet tall. The monster, roaming the countryside, comes across a couple having sex out in the open, and after scaring away the man, picks up the woman, who screams and then faints. The monster then carries her later body and drops it into a river, and when two men later find the body, the monster kills one by breaking his neck. After Harris questions Lynch and Lynch refuses Tania's offer for more grave-robbing work, the monster breaks into Lynch's home while he is having sex with a local prostitute and kills Lynch by beating him to death. The monster then kills a local farmer, his wife, and Lynch's two grave-robbing friends. Tania then goads Marshall into admitting to harboring romantic feelings for her. She responds to his affections but says that while Marshall's body is old, she finds Thomas' body young and attractive. The "solution" to this situation will be to transplant Marshall's brilliant brain into the brain-damaged Thomas's young, healthy body. To accomplish this, Tania seduces Thomas into having sex while Marshall secretly watches, and Marshall kills him with a pillow during their lovemaking. Tania then successfully transplants Marshall's brain into Thomas' body. Thomas now speaks with Marshall's voice, and his body has become inhumanly strong as well. Meanwhile, Frankenstein's monster has continued to terrorize the town, and the local villagers, having had enough, arrive with torches and pitchforks before following the monster to the castle. In the chaos, the monster returns, knocks down Harris, and has a fight with Marshall/Thomas, who cuts off his arm. When the monster bear-hugs Marshall/Thomas, Tania stabs him in the back with a sword, and Marshall/Thomas kills him by puncturing his head open with a metal hand tool. The monster is defeated, but Tania has made it clear that she has no allegiance to Marshall. The villagers storm into the castle and set it aflame in the hopes of killing the monster. Harris arrives with Thomas's sister Julia to see Tania and Marshall/Thomas naked and enjoying post-fight sexual intercourse as the castle burns beside them. However, during their lovemaking, Marshall/Thomas begins to choke Tania as the flames consume them.

Cast

(as Sara Bay) as Dr. Tania Frankenstein *

as Baron Frankenstein * Paul Muller as Dr. Charles Marshall *

Herbert Fux Herbert Fux (25 March 1927 – 13 March 2007) was an Austrian film actor and politician. He appeared in more than 140 films between 1960 and 2007. Life Fux was born in Hallein, at the age of five he moved with his family to the city of Salz ...

as Tom Lynch, the graverobber *

Marino Masé Marino Masè (21 March 1939 – 28 May 2022) was an Italian actor who appeared in more than 70 films. Life Masè was born in Trieste on 21 March 1939. While still a teenager, he joined the laboratory for young actors of the production company ...

(as Peter Whiteman) as Thomas Stack *

as Captain Harris * Lorenzo Terzon (as Lawrence Tilden) as Harris' assistant *

Renate Kasché Renate Kasché (also credited as Renate Cash) is a German actress known for such films as '' A Black Veil for Lisa'', ''Josefine Mutzenbacher'', ''Lady Frankenstein ''Lady Frankenstein'' is a 1971 Italian horror film directed by Mel Welles a ...

(as Renata Cash) as Julia Stack, Thomas' Sister *

Riccardo Pizzuti Riccardo Pizzuti (born 28 May 1934) is an Italian actor and stuntman. He is known for playing the role of gunfighter Morton Clayton in the 1972 film ''Man of the East''. Pizzuti appeared in ''They Call Me Trinity'', and its sequel ''Trinity Is ...

as The Creature

Production

was originally approached by

Vanderbilt family The Vanderbilt family is an American family who gained prominence during the Gilded Age. Their success began with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the family expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthr ...

member Henry Cooke Cushing IV with a screenplay titled '' Lady Dracula''. Cushing was determined to produce a film starring actress

, whom he was romantically pursuing. Recalling the film's development and their relationship, Welles recalled that Neri "was turning him down, everywhere. She couldn't actually stand him; Harry was actually quite good-looking, but he was a pain in the neck because he had never lived in the real world ― and that's what she resented about him. He never worked a day in his life. So here, in my lap, he dropped the script and the money to do it. What a windfall!". Upon discovering that the rights to the ''Lady Dracula'' script were actually held by actor

Brad Harris Bradford Harris (July 16, 1933 – November 7, 2017) was an American actor, stuntman, and executive producer. He appeared in a variety of roles in over 50 films, mostly in European productions. He was an inductee in the Stuntman's Hall of Fame ...

, Welles wrote a new screenplay with his friend, television writer Edward di Lorenzo, which was completed in three weeks; Welles also desired to incorporate

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

themes into the narrative. Film historian Roberto Curti has suggested that their script may have been inspired by "For the Love of Frankenstein", a story by Bill Warren and

Jack Sparling John Edmond Sparling (June 21, 1916 – February 15, 1997), was a Canadian comics artist. Biography Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Sparling moved to the United States as a child. He received his early arts training at the Arts and Crafts Club in New ...

that had appeared in the fourth issue of the comic book ''

Vampirella Vampirella () is a fictional vampire superheroine created by Forrest J Ackerman and comic book artist Trina Robbins in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine ''Vampirella'' #1 (Sept. 1969), a sister publication of '' Cre ...

''. Welles was assisted by fellow expatriate producer

Dick Randall Sir Richard John Randall (13 October 1906 – 15 November 1982) was a senior Australian public servant. He was Secretary of the Department of the Treasury between October 1966 and October 1971. Life and career Dick Randall was born ...

in assembling the remainder of the cast, which included

and

. $90,000 of ''Lady Frankenstein''s budget was originally intended to be provided through a

letter of credit A letter of credit (LC), also known as a documentary credit or bankers commercial credit, or letter of undertaking (LoU), is a payment mechanism used in international trade to provide an economic guarantee from a creditworthy bank to an ex ...

given to Welles by producer Skip Steloff, which was denied by the Italian banks shortly prior to the start of production. The money needed to make the film was eventually secured by Welles' old colleague

Roger Corman Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...

; as part of this arrangement, Corman's studio

New World Pictures New World Pictures (also known as New World Entertainment and New World Communications Group, Inc.) was an American independent production, distribution, and (in its final years as an autonomous entity) multimedia company. It was founded in 197 ...

gained the film's American distribution rights. According to Randall, the film's low budget, estimated to be less than $200,000, resulted in Cotten's schedule being shortened to two weeks and his part being rewritten so that his character's death would take place earlier in the film. Principal photography began on March 1, 1971, with most interiors being shot at De Paolis Studios in Rome, while several castle scenes were filmed at Castello Piccolomini. Aureliano Luppi was credited as the film's director on the Italian Public Cinematographic Register. Reflecting on the shoot, Neri stated that "For a number of reasons — not sentimental ones, anyway — I used to go around with

elles Elles is a surname, and may refer to: *Bertram Walter Elles (1877–1963), British colonial civil servant *Diana Elles, Baroness Elles (1921–2009), British lawyer and peer *Sir Edmond Elles (1848–1934), British Army lieutenant general *Gertru ...

his wife and children. Frankly, I don't think of him as a great director; on that film was a talented cameraman, Riccardo Pallottini, who did everything by himself — those nice lightings, for instance... he used to place the camera, then he waited for the director; he also solved technical problems and so forth".

Release

''Lady Frankenstein'' was distributed theatrically in Italy by Alexia on 22 October 1971. It grossed a total of 139,683,000

Italian lire The lira (; plural lire) was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. It was first introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and was subsequently adopted by the different states that would eventually f ...

domestically, a performance Curti declared "mediocre". It was released in the United States in March 1972 by New World Pictures in a version that was ten minutes shorter than the Italian prints, with cuts that removed expository scenes but left its violence and nudity intact. In Australia, ''Lady Frankenstein'' was released by Welles and his then-business partner Richard Lewellen, a former colleague of exploitation film producer

Kroger Babb Howard W. "Kroger" Babb (December 30, 1906 – January 28, 1980) was an American film producer and showman. His marketing techniques were similar to a travelling salesman's, with roots in the medicine show tradition. Self-described as "America's ...

, as a segment of their theatrical production ''Orgy of Evil''. The performance section of the program, which combined

spook show Midnight ghost shows (also known as spook shows, midnight spook shows, voodoo shows, or monster shows) were traveling stage shows that originated in the United States during the Great Depression. The shows were influenced by the stage magic tra ...

conventions with

Grand Guignol ''Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol'' (: "The Theatre of the Great Puppet")—known as the Grand Guignol–was a theatre in the Pigalle district of Paris (7, cité Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it specialised in natura ...

elements, starred Welles as

Satan Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...

's Prime Minister, and featured a series of illusions created with props purchased from Abbott's Magic Novelty Company that culminated in a statue of Satan coming to life to terrorize the audience; after an intermission, the film would be screened. The show featured choreography by Anita Ardell, production design by William Hutchinson, and an original score by Tommy Tycho. The world premiere for ''Orgy of Evil'' was set to take place at the Metro Theatre in Sydney on July 6, 1973, but

rolling blackout A rolling blackout, also referred to as rota or rotational load shedding, rota disconnection, feeder rotation, or a rotating outage, is an intentionally engineered electrical power shutdown in which electricity delivery is stopped for non-overla ...

s forced it to be pushed back by a week to July 13. Due to financing difficulties and protests from religious groups, ''Orgy of Evil'' lasted for only a handful of performances, ending Welles' partnership with Lewellen.

Reception

In his analysis of the film, Louis Paul described the film as "a hybrid of the '70s Hammer horror films' infatuation with nudity and sadism and the golden age of Italian horror's gothic period."

References

Footnotes

Sources

* * * *

External links

* * * {{Authority control 1971 films 1971 horror films Frankenstein films Period horror films Italian horror films 1970s science fiction horror films New World Pictures films Films scored by Alessandro Alessandroni Films set in castles Films set in Europe 1970s Italian films