Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster (1965)

User Rating:

2.5/10   

Director:

Robert Gaffney

Writers:

R.H.W. Dillard (story)
George Garrett (story)

Release Date:

22 September 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Warning! Beware their stare!

Plot:

When an atomic war on Mars destroys the planet's women, it's up to Martian Princess Marcuzan and her right-hand man Dr...

Plot Keywords:

Martian | Android | Space Capsule | Mars | Puerto Rico

Cast

Marilyn Hanold	...	Princess Marcuzan
James Karen	...	Dr. Adam Steele (as Jim Karen)
Lou Cutell	...	Dr. Nadir
Nancy Marshall	...	Karen Grant
David Kerman	...	Gen. Bowers
Robert Reilly	...	Col. Frank Saunders / Frankenstein

Also Known As:

Duel of the Space Monsters (UK)
Frankenstein Meets the Space Men
Mars Attacks Puerto Rico
Mars Invades Puerto Rico
Operation San Juan

Runtime:

USA:79 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Hempstead, Long Island, New York, USA

Company:

Futurama Entertainment Corp.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Steele, Nancy and the general fly off to Puerto Rico to search for Frank, they are seen leaving in a B-52 bomber. However, the plane they land in is a Boeing C-135.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Frankenstein: A Cinematic Scrapbook (1991)

Soundtrack:

To Have And To Hold

Awesome drive-in junk, now on DVD!

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster is now out on DVD! I have yearned to see this movie for so long and now it's on DVD and I watched it last night and I was quite happy to now have it in my collection. But, be forewarned, this movie is best enjoyed by fans of schlock horror and science fiction, the kind like drive-ins used to show in the sixties, and it's by no stretch of the imagination a "good" movie. But for hard-core "so bad it's good" fans like myself, it's a gem. The story, such as it is, is this: There's some aliens hanging around out in outer space in a saucer, and they keep blowing up earth's manned space flights from NASA, thinking they're missiles sent to destroy them. NASA decides to send a robot named Frank, who looks quite human but a quick trip to the back room and he's just a robot with fake skin and a wig thrown over the top of a few vacuum tubes and capacitors? Yeah right. Anyway Frank goes up, the spaceship gets shot down, the folks in the saucer see it was a manned flight and the evil Princess (who is dressed kind of like Cleopatra or something) berates her folks for shooting down manned flights. And then the aliens land on earth to start collecting babes in bikinis. For their planet has just had a nuclear war & they're wanting to start fresh again. Now astronaut/robot Frank has encountered these bad dudes and gotten half his fake face blown off for his trouble, and is wandering around Puerto Rico aimlessly. But his creator (James Karen, "Return of the Living Dead") is out looking for him with his assistant and they eventually find him and are trying to help him. Meanwhile, the aliens are running amok and taking their collection of babes collected from discos and beaches back to their spaceship, covering them with sheer curtains and sending them down a conveyor belt while the evil aliens watch and nod their approval. Also on the spaceship is some kind of creature, I would venture to call it a space monster, based on the title of the flick, but that's just me. Eventually Frank the astronaut/robot finds his way to the ship, rescues the babes, fights the monster, and saves earth, or at least Puerto Rico, I don't know if the rest of earth was in danger. There weren't very many aliens. There's a lot of groovy music in this too, sometimes pop and sometimes twangy 'twisting on the beach' stuff. Overall this is quite a mess, technically, but I loved every minute of it and it's bad sixties horror-schlock at its best. 8 out of 10.