Frankenstein's Daughter

Story

Young lovers kiss outside a car, but the blonde, Suzie Lawler (Sally Todd), remains as her boyfriend Don (Harold Lloyd, Jr.) drives off. The woman looks down the sidewalk to see a monstrous woman approaching her, wearing a nightgown, and Suzie screams. The next morning, the same monstrous woman, now looking human, is tossing in bed. Called by her uncle, Professor Carter Morton ( Felix Locher), Trudy Morton (Sandra Knight) is late for a tennis date. She vaguely recalls last night.

Oliver Frank (Donald Murphy) is in Morton’s study, waiting impatiently for him to arrive to begin work. Carter is developing a drug that will be a boon to mankind, but Oliver seems more interested in other pursuits. While Morton is enthusiastic, Oliver is serious, stating matter-of-factly that the professor is on the wrong track.

Later, Suzie Lawler tells her friends, Johnny Bruder (John Ashle) and Don, about the monster she saw last night. Johnny asks her why she didn't call the police or tell her folks? Then Johnny’s girl, Trudy, arrives and asks very seriously what this monster looked like. After Suzie describes the fiend, Trudy abruptly leaves. Trudy is brooding, standing by a tree, while Johnny appears, wanting to help.

Morton asks Oliver what schools he attended and where he is from. Oliver responds that they agreed, no questions asked. A knock at the door sounds, and Elsu (Wolfe Barzell), the gardener, arrives. When Oliver makes a pass at the magazine-reading Trudy, she slaps him hard in the face, storming out.

Oliver begins his personal experiments in the lab. His assistant, Elsu, who also served his father, enters the lab having acquired a severed bloody hand. Oliver is livid that he did not bring the entire corpse. He holds and studies the notes passed down from his grandfather to his father. Elsu is upset that Frank (actually Frankenstein) tries his chemical on Trudy, but he needs a subject.

Oliver meets Trudy as she exits the pool, apologizes for his earlier action, and offers her a glass of punch (which is imbued with the chemical). Trudy tells Oliver that he makes a lousy fruit punch. Feeling the effects of the drink, she excuses herself and goes to her room. Then the physical transformation slowly begins. Oliver enters her bedroom, and Trudy, looking more monstrous than ever, pushes past him and leaves the house.

She attacks a young gas station attendant, and he phones the police. Another lady, living near the gas station, reports that she was attacked by a lady wearing a bathrobe. Police Lieutenant Boyle (John Zaremba) is starting to take these incidents seriously. He and Police Detective Bill Dillion (Robert Dix) take the squad car to the woman’s address. The police see the deformed female hiding in the shadows and open fire as she runs away. Oliver Frank rescues her, and they escape to safety.

Trudy awakens weak and groggy, but now in totally human form. In the laboratory, Oliver, seeing Elsu entering from behind the bookcase, knocks the sample of Morton’s new drug out of his hands, destroying it.

Suzie arrives to see Trudy, who is lounging by the pool. Suzie, who claimed she saw a monstrous woman, shows Trudy the newspaper headlines about people seeing a female monster. Trudy suspects she is the mysterious monster and tells Johnny, who tries to believe her. Morton is about to enter the lab as the men remove the assembled body. Morton is upset to find Frank in the laboratory, but Frank convinces him that all is well and that Morton is a little confused.

Later, on a date with Suzie in his car, Oliver turns aggressive again, and she fights him off. Oliver threatens to kill her, but she goes looking for a lost shoe. Once he establishes that no one knows Suzie is with him, Oliver adopts a maniacal look and remembers the brain he needs. As Suzie runs off, Oliver follows her in his car, running her over at high speed. Returning to the lab, Oliver grafts Suzie’s head onto his patchwork body. At the same time, Trudy and Johnny return from their date, Trudy feeling much better. Trudy hears rustling and knocks on the lab door. No one inside makes a sound, so Trudy leaves. Oliver tells Elsu that he uses a female brain because females are more apt to take orders. Elsu smiles and proclaims, “Frankenstein’s daughter!” And Frank starts the electrical device.

Carter Morton returns home, out of breath, clutching his chest, weakly calling out for help. Morton collapses on the steps. In the lab nearby, Frank and Elsu hear the professor's cries. Oliver orders Elsu to leave as Trudy awakens from bed, hearing her uncle’s cries. Oliver and Trudy help Morton to rise, saying he’ll be fine, and Morton reaches into his pocket for pills, pleading not to call the doctor.

Inside the lab, the Monster (Harry Wilson) stirs and rises, looking nothing like a woman. The Monster exits the lab, noting its surroundings. It tears open the front door and ventures out. Frank ventures into the lab and finds it empty. “She’s alive.” He ignores the fact that Trudy is standing next to him.

Next, at the Associated Storage Company receiving dock, a warehouseman (Bill Coontz) hears noise and investigates as the Monster approaches, slow as a Mummy, and karate-chops the man backing up, crushing him against the heavy metal door. The Monster shows no emotion.

Elsu and Oliver are in a panic over the escaped monster, and knocks occur at the door. Thinking it’s Johnny Bruder, Trudy opens the door to the Monster, who enters, as Trudy screams and passes out. Elsu leads the Monster back to the attic as Johnny enters through the front door, helping Oliver move Trudy to a couch. She reports seeing a horrible-looking creature, but Oliver explains to Johnny about her uncle’s attack and her increasing nightmares.

Mimicking an American-International party sequence, the Page Cavanaugh Trio entertains as the teens laugh and dance. Trudy is finally relaxing, with Johnny calling the party a wonderful idea. But Don isn’t having much fun since Suzie disappeared. Trudy goes back outside looking for him, when he jumps out of the bushes wearing a silly monster mask, frightening her. For revenge, she forces him to sing.

Oliver reveals his true colors, calling Morton a nutty old man. Oliver matter-of-factly declares he intends to kill him. As he starts choking Morton, a knock on the door occurs. It’s Inspector Boyle calling on him. Morton introduces Frank as his former assistant, and Boyle asks whether Morton stole a drug from his former lab. Frank tries to frame him by admitting it’s all true. Morton wants Frank to leave his house tonight.

Meanwhile, Frank, Elsu, and the Monster are back in the lab. Elsu grows a conscience and orders Frank to stop his experiment since he brought the dead to life. He wants no more mayhem. Oliver exits the room to see Johnny and Trudy declare they are engaged. But Frank seems happy to admit her uncle is in jail, accused of stealing from Rockwell Laboratories.

Frank makes another aggressive romantic play for Trudy and drags her into the lab just as Elsu and the Monster enter, Trudy screaming and fainting. As revenge for rejecting him, Frank plans to transform her into a monster again, while Elsu objects. Since Elsu is turning against Oliver, he orders his Monster to kill him. Hearing cries of “Kill” in the other room, Trudy awakens and runs upstairs toward the front door. She flees, leaving the door open.

Running to the police station where Johnny and Boyle are, Trudy tells him everything she saw. The police are notified that Carter Morton just passed away, suffering another attack. At the Morton home, Frank welcomes Johnny and Boyle. Boyle reports that Frank told Trudy his actual name is Frankenstein, and he says Trudy is delusional, but Boyle wants to see his ID, which he claims is not on his person. Boyle then leaves.

Bill Dillion pretends to go upstairs, then quickly returns downstairs to find Oliver sneaking into the lab and disappearing upstairs into the attic. Dillion follows Frank there, where Frank is with the Monster. Oliver releases his creation from her seat, and Dillion points a gun at her. As the fiend approaches Dillion, Frank orders his beast to kill. The policeman fires his pistol, but the Monster advances anyway and overpowers him.

Johnny and Trudy, seated in their automobile outside their residence, hear the telephone ring, prompting them to enter the house. Boyle is attempting to contact Dillion, but the young couple asserts that the residence is unoccupied and that they will try to locate the detective. They proceed into the vacant laboratory, observe the staircase behind it, and ascend. However, a dark silhouette of the Monster descending halts their progression. The Monster descends the stairs toward Johnny and Trudy. Oliver commands his Monster to kill again as a police siren approaches from outside, growing louder. As Oliver attempts to lock the laboratory door from the outside, Boyle arrives, compelling Frank to retreat into the lab. Boyle fires his weapon from an exterior window, but the bullets prove ineffective. Johnny seizes a vial of acid and hurls it at the Monster, but misses, striking Oliver directly in the face. He screams, mutilated, and collapses. The Monster pauses to observe Frank, but catches his sleeve on fire and is soon totally consumed by it. Following the crisis, Johnny and Trudy enjoy a swim and a laugh.

Critique

After the first Hammer color Gothic, Curse of Frankenstein, was such a hit in 1957, the floodgates opened for more revisionist Frankenstein films in the late 1950s. Since the last Universal Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, hit theaters in 1948, little has been done with the iconic Monster since. But Hammer changed all that, inspiring (?) I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), How to Make a Monster (1958), Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958), and Frankenstein 1970 (1959). Curse of Frankenstein was the only non-exploitative entry and a film to be taken seriously, if not a literal translation of the Shelley novel.

Frankenstein’s Daughter was made as a schlock “B” movie to entertain the date-night crowd. In the 1950s, studios were forbidden to use the iconic Universal Frankenstein Monster make-up, which was copyrighted and protected by Universal. So everyone thought the new concept ought to be the best roadkill makeup possible, the grosser the better. Even though the Monster housed Suzie Lawler's head and brain, her makeup showed no sign of her, not even her blonde hair. No way did the make-up concept depict a woman; it was mutilation all the way, and even though the Monster was referred to as a “she,” it was portrayed as a “he.” Since a male portrayed the Monster, make-up artist Harry Thomas assumed the Monster would be male, and he was soon told differently. But it was too late to change the Monster’s sex or make-up concept.

Donald Murphy, who portrayed Oliver Frank(enstein), was the hammiest, most over-the-top mad scientist of them all. His eyes would bulge as he revealed he was Frankenstein, not Frank. The manner in which he portrayed the ultra-aggressive lover boy was so way over the top that one would think he had invented sex. The manner in which he bragged about his scientific endeavors was so exaggerated as to be laughable. It was as if Murphy did not believe in his character at all, so he lampooned everything. He seemed to forget what Colin Clive had done with the role, or what Peter Cushing had done more recently.

And the Monster! She, looking like a he, wore bandages around her head and a dark rubber suit that strapped her arms back so she could not straighten them. She was squat and rhythmic, taking jaunty little steps as if learning to maneuver. Her arms moved in slow, rhythmic (“The Little Train That Could”) movements. The She Monster displayed no emotion (the make-up wouldn’t allow it) and seemed to move from instinct alone. This latest Frankenstein Monster was more make-up and jittery movement than performance-based.

As if the titular Frankenstein Monster were not enough for one movie, they introduced the she-monster, portrayed by Sandra Knight (Trudy), who was chemically induced to transform just twice. The fiend resembled a female and featured prominently in the terrific pre-title sequence. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room in this “B” production to feature two monsters, and the Trudy monster was eventually scrapped. With just a few major horror-action scenes, Trudy stopped being chemically drugged and remained the tortured teen, allowing Frankenstein's Monster to take the focus.

The ultra-low-budget movie featured a laboratory and small attic set, the downstairs living quarters, and the upstairs bedroom, as well as a small outdoor section showing streets, outdoor shrubbery, and the backyard barbecue and swimming pool. Actually, it appears that director Richard Cucha used an actual house for the movie. But the movie was apparently filmed at his small independent Screencraft Studios on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. But it still remained a claustrophobic set.

Harry Wilson’s concept of the creature was an extension of the Glenn Strange portrayal of the Monster. We don’t have the heart and soul of Boris Karloff’s portrayal. Instead, the heartless creatures that Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr. portrayed (well, Chaney had the sequence with the little girl) were further dehumanized by Glenn Strange, who lay dormant for 80 percent of the movie and only reached full strength to come alive in the final reel. Here, Harry Wilson played the Monster as a comatose fiend moving something akin to a wind-up toy and slaughtering without any semblance of emotion. The Frankenstein Monster was reduced to its lowest common denominator, basically being an ugly face attached to a robotic body.

Frankenstein’s Daughter showed the utter disintegration occurring in the 23 years separating James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein and this abomination. Without explanation, it grew in stature to become a cult favorite, wildly entertaining to teenage audiences of the day, carefully mimicking the successful American-International youth horror programmers. I have to admit, I do love its exploitative charms, and the film does have its merits. But Frankenstein 1970 is so much better at what this film attempts, actually featuring Boris Karloff. But Frankenstein’s Daughter is sleazy fun, to be enjoyed for exactly what it offers: 90 minutes of monster action, teenage romance, pop music, and teenagers rocking out. It remains a movie of its time.

ELSU (WOLFE BARZELL) ADMIRES THE CREATION OF THE FEMALE FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER (HARRY WILSON).

ELSU AND OLIVER FRANK (DONALD MURPHY) BECKON THE MONSTER AS TRUDY (SANDRA KNIGHT) LIES UNCONSCIOUS.