Please note: This is not the film I intended to review for this Roundtable. Unfortunately, my copy of the actual film has gone AWOL, which I didn’t notice until too late in the game. I will be reviewing that film as soon as I can find my DVD or (groan) buy another copy. In the meantime, please enjoy this cheaty filler!
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DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN (1971)
In an amusement park on Venice Beach, the last of the Frankensteins masquerades as Dr Durea, proprietor of the Creature Emporium. Durea is confronted by Count Dracula, who has dug up the original Frankenstein monster from the cemetery where it was buried by another scientist after he discredited Durea and crippled him. Dracula offers Durea the chance to revenge himself on his enemies by using the monster, in exchange for the miraculous serum developed by Durea from blood taken from people who have been decapitated and then brought back to life. Meanwhile, a Las Vegas entertainer falls for a middle-aged hippie while searching for her missing sister, one of the decapitees.
Confused? Then my work here is done.
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#1 by Baron Scarpia on May 29, 2011 - 4:35 am
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I’m prepared to go out on a limb here and dub this particular example of the trope the single worst musical interlude in the history of the genre film.
Have you seen Deadly Weapons? In that film Chesty Morgan (a real-life stripper) gives the most dreadful striptease performance in the history of exploitation. With the audienc eto match.
#2 by lyzard on May 29, 2011 - 5:41 am
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Nnnnno, I can’t say I’m a connoisseur of movie stripping. I know just enough about Chesty not to go looking for her. And to suspect you’re being mean comparing Regina Carrol to her. 🙂
#3 by Jen S on May 29, 2011 - 11:31 am
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The “upright security system” that provides in-film black bars for the naughty bits is also in The Atomic Brain (prompting Mike in the MSTied version to exclaim “hey, there’s a naked lady in this movie, and she’s nude! With no clothes on!”)
Ahhh, monster movie props. They do get around.
#4 by lyzard on May 29, 2011 - 4:28 pm
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Unconscious young women in laboratories having their vital fluids drained seems to have become an unintended theme for me (and Angelo) in this Roundtable. Interesting that the version made nearly thirty years earlier is much, much creepier in its implications of what’s being done to those girls.
#5 by Ronald Byrd on May 29, 2011 - 5:18 pm
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I thought the Dr. Beaumont backstory sounded like a better plot than the actual movie.
Another Adamson/Rossitto film, “Brain of Blood,” aka “The Oozing Skull,” ALSO involves a woman being drained, although in her case it’s for the more straightforward of blood transfusions. Rossitto also appeared as a lab assistant in “Mesa of Lost Women.” One can almost imagine an immortal, itinerant science-minded dwarf wandering from mad scientist to mad scientist, tender “David Banner on the road” music playing in the background…
>>>Now, granted, I haven’t yet seen Ted V. Mikels’ The Girl In Gold Boots – it’s over on the shelf somewhere – but in spite of this hole in my knowledge, I’m prepared to go out on a limb here and dub this particular example of the trope the single worst musical interlude in the history of the genre film.
Actually, “The Girl with Gold Boots” isn’t a genre film — or rather, not a sf/f/horror genre film, which is what it seems like you mean — so that’s one caveat down, anyway. 🙂
However, as far as its own genre (generic go-go/crime/sleaze/and, uh, yeah, whatever) goes, I can’t even imagine how much competition GWGB would have in that category…
#6 by lyzard on May 29, 2011 - 6:08 pm
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True, I guess I was mentally linking Al Adamson and Ted V. Mikels – “crap films” as a genre. 🙂
And i just LOVE your idea of a travelling lab assistant!!
#7 by Ronald Byrd on May 29, 2011 - 6:59 pm
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>>>“crap films” as a genre
Well, when you remember that for each “sorta generic” film MST3K featured — including Racket Girls, High School Big Shot, Girl on Lovers Lane, and, of course Girl in Gold Boots — there are hundreds more still waiting in obscurity, that’s a genre that no one can say where ends.
Sepaking of Mikels, his “Astro-Zombies” also featured a woman as lab subject, except she was apparently just…there in the background, not actually part of the plot (such as it was). As the Bad Movie Report site puts it: “The Bikini Babe — A Nation Asks, “Why”?” I guess the scientist was in the middle of THAT project when suddenly, a light bulb moment: “No, wait! Astro-Zombies! EVEN BETTER…!”
#8 by Ronald Byrd on May 29, 2011 - 7:32 pm
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Dwarf lab assistants reminded me of a comparatively rarer dwarf mad scientist from “Werewolf of Washington”…which, oddly enough, also sort fits in with my “Astro-Zombies” remarks. At one point, the werewolf wanders into a mad scientist lab that not only has nothing to do with the rest of the movie but is apparently FUNDED BY THE US GOVERNMENT. The scientist, Dr. Kiss, virtually shows a sense of wonder at the existence of a werewolf, although the latter hastily departs (how many movies have a scene where someone shouts “Wait! Come back!” at a werewolf?). Later, at a meeting, Kiss tells the President (!) he wants the werewolf taken alive for his “program.” He and a vaguely spy-ish guy depart the meeting via a secret passage…and that’s the last we hear of Dr. Kiss and his project. Sometimes we really do only see the iceberg’s tip…
#9 by The Rev. on May 30, 2011 - 12:49 pm
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I saw that last year on Elvira’s current show. I’d never even heard of it. Man, it was a rough slog…and then, we get Dean Stockwell’s goofy-ass transformation scene, and that lycanthropic-loving dwarf scientist out of absolutely nowhere…if the first hour had been as batshit crazy and/or stupid as that last 20 or so minutes, it’d be a HUGE cult classic today.
#10 by Ian Whittle on June 2, 2011 - 4:07 am
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Re: Shelley Weiss
“Also in the credits, we find…one of filmdom’s great mysteries: Shelley Weiss as The Creature. No such character appears in this film, and we are left to assume that she was a last-minute casualty of the metamorphosis of The Blood Seekers into Dracula Vs Frankenstein.”
I seem to recall reading that Shelley Weiss (first name kind of appropiate here!) was a male actor who played the Frankenstein Monster in the final fight scenes, as John Bloom was not avaliable. The monster makeup does look a bit better at that point!
Great review!
#11 by lyzard on June 2, 2011 - 4:42 pm
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Ah! Yes, that’s an interesting explanation – a way of crediting both participants – thank you.
And thank you! 🙂
#12 by PB210 on June 4, 2011 - 4:52 am
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http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/reply/354212/Monsterfests#reply-354212
This film reminds me of the thread about monster meetings on Yuku.
#13 by Ian Whittle on June 4, 2011 - 6:26 am
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Scathach80 I presume? 🙂
#14 by The Rev. on June 6, 2011 - 11:43 am
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I’m loathe to admit my ignorance, but…what is the significance of the name “Joanie Fontain”? I think someone besides Lyz has mentioned that in their review of this movie, and I’m at a loss as to what it means.
#15 by lyzard on June 7, 2011 - 4:43 am
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Tsk! – try this
Obviously she didn’t make enough crap movies…although like most actresses of her generation, she did make at least one…helping to prove conclusively that the British cannot do orgies.
#16 by The Rev. on June 7, 2011 - 7:28 am
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Ohhhh….OK, I didn’t try spelling it that way.
I didn’t remember her from VttBotS…of course, I remember very little from that, aside from the eel.
I can’t believe you tsk’ed me. I was having such a good morning, too…
#17 by lyzard on June 7, 2011 - 4:23 pm
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Oh, a very gentle tsk, m’dear…more in sorrow than in anger.
The thing I always remember about VttBotS is the neat-freak shark, which cleans up every single drop and scrap when it eats.
Come to think of it…that was Joanie, wasn’t it??
#18 by The Rev. on June 8, 2011 - 9:42 am
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Oh dammit, I just realized I confused VttBotS with Around the World Under the Sea. THAT’S the one with the eel. VttBotS had the super-tidy shark, and the giant octopus and squid. And Joanie. And Peter Lorre.
Oy vey. I totally deserved that “tsk.” Hell, I probably deserve another one. I’m a disgrace to the community. I won’t be able to show my face at T-Fest now, ’cause Ken’ll totally point and hoot at me.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop drinking.
#19 by The Rev. on June 10, 2011 - 7:47 am
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Man, no comforting words from anyone. I really AM a pariah now.
*wanders off, sadly humming the theme song from “The Incredible Hulk”*
#20 by Cullen on June 13, 2011 - 11:08 pm
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Hey, at least you haven’t said you liked Cathy’s Curse.
In a public former.
Then linked said response several times.
Including the IMDb.
So you’ve got that going for you.
#21 by The Rev. on June 14, 2011 - 7:44 am
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Well, since I haven’t seen it, no, I haven’t.
Of course, now I have great curiousity about this movie…
#22 by Cullen on June 14, 2011 - 11:42 pm
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Look, watching Cathy’s Curse might have an adverse effect on your thinking. Like making you think you wrote “forum” when you actually wrote “former.”
No one wants to have that happen to them.
(Notice how I neatly imply I could spell before Cathy’s Curse)
As for the movie… It’s not going to change your world view. It’s not that good or that bad. Disappointing, maybe, but not irritatingly so. You could easily do both worse or better with any movie you can think of.
#23 by lyzard on June 13, 2011 - 6:35 pm
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At one point I started to write something nasty and then stopped myself – does that help?
#24 by The Rev. on June 14, 2011 - 7:46 am
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Yes…yes, it does, actually. Thank you for your mercy.