“What we need is a man. A powerful man. And then we shall succeed.”
In the early 1880s, Dr Frankenstein's evil granddaughter Maria (Narda Onyx) has moved to the American West with her brother Rudolph (Steven Geray). Her intent is to use the prairie lightning storms in her experiments. Her guinea pigs are immigrant children kidnapped from town. She kills the children and replaces their brains with artificial ones. She is trying to make a race of slaves. Although reluctant, Rudolph is too afraid to go against his sister. So far she has not succeeded. Of course it doesn’t help that Rudolph is secretly poisoning the kids so they don’t wake up. Maria refers to grandpa’s notes and determines that the reason for the failures is that she needs a big strong man instead of experimenting on children.
Enter Jesse James (John Upton) and his companion Hank Tracy (Cal Bolder). They are recruited by Butch Curry (Roger Creed) and the rest of his gang, The Wild Bunch. The job is to steal $100,000 from the next stagecoach. However, Butch's brother Lonny (Rayford Barnes) rats them out to get the reward money for Jesse. Marshall MacPhee (Jim Davis) and is men shoot the remaining members of the Wild Bunch gang and wound Hank.
Jesse and Hank manage to escape the sheriff. They stop at the campsite of the Lopez family. Their daughter Juanita (Estelita Rodriguez) agrees to take them to the doctor. Her father forbids it. During the middle of the night Juanita, Jesse and Hank sneak off back to town to the Frankenstein house to get Hank some help.
Maria agrees to help. When the sheriff and Lonny show up she covers for them. She plans to use Hank in her next experiment. Maria tries to seduce Jesse to keep him and Hank around. It doesn’t work. He is more smitten with Juanita. Maria gets jealous. She sends him to town with a note for the pharmacist. She says it’s for a prescription needed for Hank. In reality the note tells the pharmacist that the bearer is really Jesse James the outlaw.
While he is gone Maria operates on Hank and gives him an artificial brain. She then brings him back to life. She renames him Igor. Rudolph attempts to poison Hank. Maria catches him and orders Igor to kill her brother. She now has her monster and she believes nothing can stop her.
“Jesse James meets Frankenstein’s Daughter” is exactly what it sounds like. Silly. It was released in 1966. It was directed by William Beaudine and written by Carl K. Hittleman. This movie and its brother “Billy the Kid VS Dracula” belong to a sub-genre known as weird west. “Jesse James meets Frankenstein’s Daughter” is your basic camp. It’s played straight which adds to the camp factor. The acting, script and whole tone of the movie is over the top. Right up to the riding off into the sunset. Precious.
I guess the best way to find a good man is to make one. The title is a tad misleading. It’s not really Frankenstein’s daughter but Frankenstein’s granddaughter. The movie is already out in another altered universe, I don’t know why they just didn’t go with granddaughter in the title. It’s a bit of nonsense that is still entertaining. Don’t expect much and you will not be disappointed.