Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster

It needs to be established, right from the get-go, that neither Dr. Frankenstein nor his stitched-together, reanimated namesake, make an appearance in this 1965 shlock-o-rama.. That said, it's seventy-five of the most enjoyable minutes you're ever likely to spend watching the nefarious unfolding of an extraterrestrial plot to kidnap scantily-clad Puerto Rican women to repopulate the atom-blasted Martian homeworld. Or, something along those lines.

Princess Marcuzan (Marilyn Hanold) and her accomplice Dr. Nadir (Lou Cutell), a short, bald little fellow with tremendous Spock ears, are zipping through space (shown here using stock footage appropriated from NASA I take it) with a bunch of starship troopers in racing helmets and plastic overalls, with a plot to colonize or kidnap earth women as breeding stock, or, well, something along those lines. Because, you see, "They won the war," so the entire race is now doomed, and the lucky ones are dying in torment or insane. (One wonders: If that is winning the war, what, pray tell, would constitute losing?)

Down below, on the watery surface of the Big Blue Marble, Dr. Adam Steele (veteran actor the late James Karen, credited here as "Jim") is giving a presentation with his cyborg astronaut "Frank," who stops suddenly, freezing while giving a lecture, in a moment that is nicely dream-like and unsettling.

"Frank," as you might have guessed, is the "Frankenstein" to which the film refers; he's pieced together from spare body parts and electrical gizmos. Half-man, half-machine he is, anticipating a certain role that would eventually be made famous by an Austrian bodybuilder.

Frank is launched into orbit, and the aliens just as soon blast him out of it, for reasons that are never made clear. Crash-landing in Puerto Rico, the Martians follow him down, and a Martian trooper shoots half his cyborg face off; leaving him looking scary and cool, by the way.

Blasted out of his mind, Frank wanders Puerto Rico, indulges in some aimless terror and killing, and the Martians proceed to kidnap some fresh "breeding stock"; i.e., women in bikinis.

Dr. Steele and his love interest Karen (Nancy Marshall), go riding through the streets of a Puerto Rican village on a motorbike, while some smooth, Sixties easy listening music plays in the background, The scene is too sexy, laid-back, and cool for this picture; it's a high point.

I suppose they're looking for Frank. Cut to the chase: The military is brought in, the "Space Monster" to which the title refers (a hairy thing straight out of 'The Crate" segment of Creepshow, all teeth and antenna) escapes from its barred prison to do battle against half-faced Frank, and we get lots of stock shots of military jets shooting missiles at things. In this case, Nadir and Marcuzzan's spaceship, which looks like a geodesic dome on stilts.

There is confusion between day and night (Frank and the space monster battle in their own special world of foggy, smoky dark, while everywhere else it's daylight), and the camera gets tilted now and again for dramatic and strange comic book angles. (Thirty-five years later, the famous "bad movie" Battlefield Earth would employ the same technique to the point of absurdity.)

Nice laser blast sound effects and an exploding spaceship round out the dramatic ending. Then, as they say, all is well.

The soundtrack is a blend of laid-back Sixties tunes, classical touches, a bit of rock and roll, and a bit of experimental synthesizer bloop and bleeps. If there is any subtext it is that militarism and greed lead to total destruction and insanity, as Princess MArcuzzan, I repeat, insists they've WON a war that has pretty much destroyed their entire planet, decimated their people, and caused them to go hunting through the galaxy for someone else's planet to pillage. But, maybe that isn't what it was saying at ll.

Maybe it is as dumb as it appears to be. It's still an incredible lot of fun packed into seventy-five minutes of monster movie nonsense. In these distressing times, you could do a lot worse.

One final note: Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster was featured in the compilation comedy film It Came From Hollywood! (1982), which featured Dan Ackroyd, John Candy, Gilda Radner, and Cheech and Chong in various SNL-style comedy sketches, introducing clips to low-budget B pictures and assorted cinematic turkeys. Ackroyd refers to Dr. Nadir as "Mr. Spock's brother Shecky." Which was a funny, memorable quip.

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster