I’ll admit it. I cheated. Instead of watching this movie in its original form, I found a version that had Joe Bob Briggs do commentary. Unlike modern commentary tracks where bloggers and magazine writers try in vain to impress you with how cool and smart they are, Joe Bob just hangs back and blows your mind with his limitless info. It made this movie way better than it deserves.

Paired with director William Beaudine’s other cowboys against the supernatural film Billy the Kid Versus Dracula, this film supposes what would happen if Dr. Frankenstein’s daughter Maria would come to the American wild west along with her brother Rudolph to use prairie lightning to turn immigrant children into slaves that will help continue their father’s experiments.

Meanwhile, Mañuel and Nina Lopez are leaving town before their daughter Juanita (Estelita Rodriguez, Rio Bravo) is killed. And here comes Jesse James (John Lupton, Airport 1975), Hank Tracy and Butch Curry, the leader of the Wild Bunch (no, not the Peckinpah film), who are here to steal $100,000 from a stagecoach. Yep, Jesse James did not die on April 3, 1882.

The crime gets foiled when Butch’s brother Lonny tips off Marshall MacPhee (Jim Davis, Jock Ewing the patriarch of the Ewings of TV’s Dallas) in exchange for becoming his deputy and getting reward money for Jesse James. Everyone but Jesse is shot, with Hank barely surviving. They hide in the Lopez family’s camp and Juanita takes them to the Frankensteins in the hope that Hank’s mortal wound can be healed.

Maria, of course, is in love with Jesse instantly, even faking suicide to get in his heart. She’s goth before goth was goth, basically. Jesse manages to escape another trap and kills Lonny, who has tried to bring him back in. Maria Frankenstein has transformed Hank into Igor, her new servant, and killed off her brother. She then orders him to kill Juanita, but he turns on his mistress. In a final scuffle with Jesse, Juanita kills the monster with Jesse’s revolver. She begs the famous outlaw to stay with her, but he goes off into the sunset, arrested by the sheriff.

I fear that I’ve made this movie sound way more interesting than it really is. The one good thing I can say is that the lab equipment was provided by Ken Strickfaden, who loaned out his gadgets for all of the Universal films, as well as Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein and Blackenstein.

That said, William Beaudine started his career as an assistant to D.W. Griffith on The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. His directing career stretched from 1922 to 1966, with this being his final film. Harry Medved’s book, The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, gave Beaudine the nickname “One-Shot” because everything ended up being in his films, like actors screwing up their lines or special effects not working properly.

The truth is that he actually had some talent and worked with plenty of talented films, including Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett and W.C. Fields. However, bad judgment and worse luck ruined his career.

Beaudine was brought to England in the 1930’s to work with their top stars. He directed there and expected to come back to the United States with his A-list status intact. Sadly, studios no longer wanted to pay his salary. And even worse, he lost his personal fortune when a bank he bought an interest failed. It got worse. Most of his UK income was then seized by the British government in taxes.

Then, publicist-turned-producer Jed Buell and Dixie National Pictures offered Beaudine $500 to direct a one week job: an all black picture. The director realized that if he took this job, he’d never return to the limelight. But at that point, he was near destitute and needed the work.

William Beaudine reinvented himself as the master of low budget films, forgoing art for survival. He recouped his finances through the amount of work he turned in, working in all genres and with stars like Bela Lugosi in the absolutely bonkers film Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, the East Side Kids and nearly half of Monogram Pictures’ series of Bowery Boys comedies. In fact, he became the master of sequel series films, also working on films with characters like Torchy Blane, Jiggs and Maggie, The Shadow and Charlie Chan.

He also directed Mom and Dad, the film that pretty much set up the exploitation movie pipeline until the death of grindhouses. Produced by Kroger Babb, this film was distributed by a loose knot organization that called themselves the Forty Thieves. You had guys like S.S. “Steamship” Millard, who produced Is Your Daughter Safe?, Samuel Cummins whose Public Welfare Pictures and Jewel Productions brought the public 10 Days in a Nudist Camp, J.D. Kendis who produced Gambling with Souls, Dwain Esper who brought one of the original serial killer movies Maniac to the public (as well as buying Freaks from MGM for just $50,000 and re-distributing films like Reefer Madness), Willis Kent who had The Wages of Sin, Louis Sonney who owned the West Coast with films like Hell-a-Vision and Howard “Pappy” Golden, who was known for stealing prints from the other thieves. They weren’t a studio as much as an informal trade association, kind of like the old National Wrestling Association, that used something they called the “states rights” system. Truly, Mon and Dad is an exploitation landmark and we wouldn’t have so many of the films we love without it.

Beaudine became so well known for his efficient directing that Walt Disney himself used him for several films (he directed the special Disneyland After Dark, whose title was appropriated by the Danish rock band D-A-D). TV was tailor-made for the director, as he worked on shows like Lassie. He was even the director of Plan 9 from Outer Space alum Criswell’s TV series, Criswell Predicts!

This Western horror mix would be his last film, although after Bruce Lee became famous, several episodes of The Green Hornet that he directed would be packaged as feature films — 1974’s The Green Hornet and 1976’s Fury of the Dragon.

Look, this isn’t a great movie. But it’s fun. And it’ll lead you to learning a lot about exploitation films and Old Hollywood, if you want to learn more.

Don’t have the Chilling Classics box set? You can watch this for free on the Internet Archive.

John S Berry really came through, getting this next Chilling Classics movie our way on a quick deadline. I watched this movie too, so I can feel the pain that he had to go through. I never want anyone to do anything I wouldn’t do, you know? You can check out John on Twitter. 

When it comes to the world of cinema (especially bargain, Mill Creek sets) I often remind myself at just how difficult it is to get a movie made, any movie. I try to live by the Shock Waves podcast credo of how the movie that you didn’t like somewhere it may live as someone’s favorite movie and to be positive.

We really do have enough negative bullshit going on many fronts these days (and most days) to let it soak into what a lot of us like, movies. When I am not a huge fanboy, supporting pied piper or when my neck is sore from shaking it I just repeat the mantra “It was not for me. But if you liked it please enjoy, it was not for me.” I guess this is my cinema version of the Bill Burr philosophy of “fair enough.”

Maybe this is too much philosophy for a movie by a western movie involving Frankenstein’s Monster directed by a man who had close to 350 known films. But really isn’t this the 1966 version of indy cinema in the vein of Abe Lincoln vs. Zombies?

William Beaudine also made Billy the Kid vs. Dracula in the same year. Maybe he shot them back to back or maybe these were some passion products that he always wanted to do. He could make films fast and cheap, according to IMDB “Instead of shooting full coverage of scenes, he would shoot only what he knew was absolutely necessary. This saved both production time and raw stock, an important factor at the Poverty Row studios where he worked.”

The film has a few things going for it. On my second viewing after a long day, I appreciate it more. The previous night even with sleeping in and a nap under my belt I dozed off about half way thru and decided I would attempt later. The poster artwork has a distinct style and I wonder what young kids thought in the context of the times. Did they laugh at the crazy concept or did they wonder what the evil lady and Monster had in store of the Robin Hood of gunfighters?

This movie is made for when you can’t sleep at 3AM or an afternoon when you are home sick from school. I cannot imagine watching this many more times but I am hoping to snag the version with Joe Bob Briggs commentary once it is somewhat affordable on the eBay. I am not sure if it is anyone’s favorite movie or ranked in their top 20 but it has its charm, unlike the lead who plays Jesse James John Lupton.

He is a very slender blonde hair guy and does not seem to have any charm or wit to his personality. Lupton reminded me of Jim Varney (Ernest Goes to…) with a thin blond mustache. Is it wrong that in my fantasy booking of a remake I have Ernest playing Jesse James and William Smith from Grave of the Vampire playing loveable oaf muscle man Hank Tracy? But I am sure the budget was not huge but I am sure Beaudine was able to turn a profit.

The film has some good ideas for the story but it never really has a scary or creepy vibe. It starts off with a pretty bland western feel (I have probably seen too many shoot ’em up carve ’em up Spaghetti Westerns) and Jesse James is seen as a noble outlaw. His big galoot of a buddy Hank Tracy is trying to win them some money in a fist fight. Hank is a huge dude and I instantly think he is going to be the star of the movie. Nope, Hank wins his fight IE does all the work and Jesse just threatens the would be welcher and gets their money.

Most of the town folk are leaving and the Frankenstein bro and sis are running out of folks to experiment on. Dr. Maria Frankenstein is actually the granddaughter of Dr. Frankenstein and she works with her brother Dr. Rudolph (who looks like a Grandpa) on various mind control, raising from the dead, super soldier kind of experiments. Seems like mainly what they get done is ruining Maria’s hair with a rasta painted helmet and either killing off the person or injecting them with some good ole skull and crossbones poison.

Luckily Maria just happens to flip thru the right book and figures out why her experiments failed. She needs a strong man and lucky for her one will soon land in her lap. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Jesse and Hank have been double-crossed by the remnant of the Wild Bunch. Hank takes a bullet for Jesse and they are on the run.

They run into Juanita and her family and she decides to take them to get help for Hank. The Frankensteins patch up Hank and don’t trust Juanita. Jesse must be giving off some sort of pheromone because not only does Juanita decide she loves him but Maria is smitten too (funny scene her brother teases her for actually being human and she paintbrushes him). But really he is more into his badass outlaw persona and chooses to stay on the run.

I am not too sure why they wouldn’t be into Hank. He is built like a brick shit house and seems very loyal and sweet. Jesse comes across cranky and moody and he smokes a lot so he probably has hot trail breath as well. Hank does not come across too bright but neither does Jesse. Jesse is easily conned and taking this noble approach way to far.

Jesse is sent away for “medicine” which is really a note incriminating himself so he will get caught. Before he goes on his mission Juanita (who is probably the smartest one) begs him not to go. She sees it is a trick and Jesse in his pompous ass fashion tells her a version of a man has got to do what a man has got to do and leaves to the near town.

Even after her begging him he has no inkling to maybe take a peek at the letter just in case. This arrogant SOB doesn’t even hold up to any light and try to read the letter. Nope he figures Dr. Maria is so smitten with him she is on the up and up.

Jesse gets some revenge and Juanita calls him on his macho BS as she has seen what Dr. Maria has done to poor Hank. Hank was smitten with Maria before he was Igor and Maria cannot stand the thought of Jesse becoming a mindless beast. Actually with Maria controlling him maybe he would have a little more charm. Juanita goes to get the Sheriff and saves the day and Jesse. At the end, Jesse rides off with the Sheriff and I am not sure if he is going to jail or to hang from a willow tree.

The film ends with a sad ending for Hank. Sadly for him, Juanita was a pretty good shot with her eyes closed but lucky because there were no gaping bullet holes in his chest. Poor Hank is buried and to add insult to the injury his grave says “Hank Tracy He was Jesse James’ friend.” Come on! The guy can’t even have top billing on his own headstone!!!

Jesse James is an egomaniac and I wish Hank as Igor would have squeezed him until he was just a hat and a bad mustache. Hank would have lived out his days with Juanita raising a family, they would have saved money on horses on account of Hank could be the plow horses.