More laboratory shenanigans, this time from Italy.
Dr. Frankenstein (Joseph Cotton) is up to his old tricks again, and the creature he's assembled over three years finally nears completion. Though facial burns and a dislodged eyeball render the creature hideous, the real problem is that its brain is defective, but Frankenstein is simply to gung ho to care. As this is going on, his daughter Tania (Rosalba Neri) returns from medical college with a degree in surgery and immediately twigs to what her dad is up to. The doctor does not want her getting involved, in case something goes wrong and the authorities become involved, but Tania will not be denied, and her enthusiasm is supported by Frankenstein's assistant, Dr. Marshall (Paul Muller). While continuing to hold his daughter at bay, Frankenstein completes the creature (Ricardo Pizzuti), which kills Frankenstein and immediately begins rampaging around the countryside.
Will this dumb motherfucker never learn?
As the monster's body count grows, Tania seizes the opportunity and convinces Marshall that the only thing that can stop the creature is another man-made affront to nature, and she proposes transplanting Marshall's brain into the younger, handsome, and fit body of mentally disabled Thomas (Mariano Mase), her late father's servant. Marshall stuck around with Frankenstein for years in hope that Tania would someday return, as he has carried a torch for her for ages, so he agrees to her plan with the understanding that she will love him back once he's in Thomas's body. But as the monster keeps on killing, matters are complicated for Tania as the avaricious graverobber who supplied her father with corpses makes it clear that he wants to slip her a length in exchange for his services, a detective investigates the monster's killing spree and comes to suspect Tania knows more than she's letting on, Thomas's sister shows up just as he's been missing for days (he was seduced by Tania, then murdered by Marshall while Tania straddles poor Thomas and achieves orgasm as the simple man expires), and the villagers, fed up with the monster killing everybody, soon storm the castle with torches and an aim to end the monster and Lady Frankenstein once and for all. Once Marshall has inhabited Thomas's body, the need for a monster to fight a monster is completely forgotten, though we do get a rather feeble set-to between the pair, during which Lady Frankenstein shoves a knife through the monster's back, killing him. As the castle burns, the inspector and Thomas's sister burst into the lab, where the see the monster dead on the floor, while Tania and Marshall/Thomas inexplicably have sex amid the flames. Then, for no apparent reason, Marshall/Thomas strangles Tania and the film abruptly ends.
Karloff only got a little girl to chuck into the river. This putz gets a full-grown nekkid lady. Ah, the joys of European cinema...
Basically what would happen if Italy attempted to ape the look and tropes of Hammer's Frankenstein series, only minus the resources and a compelling story while skimping on the blood but upping the gratuitous nudity, LADY FRANKENSTEIN is nothing but a pedestrian rehashing of nearly every Frankenstein movie trope one can think of, with the promise of titillation constantly looming. It's rather dull when there's no tits or killing going on, and the monster is just a mindless brute, so there's nothing there to care about or sympathize with. There is, however, a memorable and unintentionally funny scene where the monster, rampaging around the hills in broad daylight, encounters a pair of lovers in the act, right next t a river. The monster attacks and while the man flees, the monster picks up the nude woman and dumps her into the water, where she just up and dies. At least in the 1931 classic version of FRANKENSTEIN with Boris Karloff, the monster fatally chucking a little girl into the drink is set up by the child and the monster innocently playing a game where they toss flowers into the water to watch them float. Karloff's monster throws the little girl into the water, not understanding why the child ends up drowning. It's tragic as fuck and bears hefty emotional weight, both in sadness for the little girl, but also for the uncomprehending monster. This Italian take on the scenario cares for nothing but fueling the sex and violence quota, making sure we get to ogle the woman's naked body for all it's worth. (Though no bushola, unfortunately.)
When all is said and done, you've seen
this movie before, countless times and done much, much better, so I
can't even recommend this for Frankenstein completists. it's just a
rote, disappointing Hammer knockoff that's directed by Mel Welles, the
actor who played the owner of the florist's shop in the original 1960
Roger Corman no-budget classic, THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. If you must
waste your time on a bad Frankenstein movie, at least make it FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND. That movie has the common decency to be entertainingly stupid as well as cheap and awful.
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