everyone's favorite auntie

   Auntie Mame. [videorecording (DVD)]. Warner Bros. Pictures presents; screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green; directed by Morton DaCosta. From the novel, Auntie Mame, by Patrick Dennis, as adapted for the stage by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. Originally released as a motion picture in 1958.
   Director of photography, Harry Stradling, Sr.; art director, Malcolm Bert; film editor, William Ziegler; set decorator, George James Hopkins; costumes designed by Orry-Kelly; music by Bronislau Kaper. Performers: Rosalind Russell, Forrest Tucker, Coral Browne, Fred Clark, Roger Smith, Patric Knowles, Peggy Cass, Jan Handzlik, Joanna Barnes, Pippa Scott, Lee Patrick, Willard Waterman, Robin Hughes, Connie Gilchrist, Yuki Shimoda, Brook Byron, Carol Veazie.
   Summary: In 1928, a 10-year-old boy goes to New York to live with his eccentric, sophisticated Auntie Mame, a lady who throws a party for any occasion, or non-occasion. He grows up and brings home his fiancée and her parents, and Mame finds them uninteresting and snobbish.

style ****
substance ****

A recent viewing, my first ever, of Auntie Mame provided me with one of those magical moments in a cinema buff’s life. This is a movie that’s a complete joy start to finish, and moreover strikes an emotional chord in a very personal way. And how well it’s aged!

By 1958 American culture and society was simmering with a liberal gestalt that would boil over in the Sixties, and the time was ripe for a (relatively) no-holds-barred cinematic treatment of the play that was a recent smash hit on Broadway. The attitudes in the film version of Auntie Mame are actually more Thirties (i.e. pre-Code-ish) than Fifties, and the script and situations get away with a lot of risqué/un-pc material, at least by the standards of the era. Then again, while the Fifties were more repressed than our own times, they were also less pc.

So much of the dialogue still sparkles today, especially when combined with the flawless delivery and timing. Indeed the zingers come so fast and frequent that they reveal themselves only upon repeated viewings. Maybe it has something to do with the story being set mostly in the Twenties and Thirties: those eras, like fine wine, become mellower and better as they age, certainly more so than, say, the Sixties and Seventies, which haven’t aged very gracefully. Continuing the thought, it occurs to me that Auntie Mame is basically a pre-Code movie made in 1958, i.e. all the stylistic trappings of 1950s films but with story line, snappy dialogue and worldly wise-characters that are pure early Thirties.

And true to the film's pre-Code, proletarian spirit, Mame’s character is socially, and, by implication, politically liberal. This is conveyed primarily through her zesty one-liners and verbal comebacks, which she delivers with considerable aplomb. But, curiously, for all the progressive overlay, politics per se doesn’t figure a whit in Auntie Mame. And while it's undeniable that Mame Dennis is more style than substance (and as a result wealth becomes her a lot better than poverty), when the style is this warm-hearted and honest in its, well, stylishness, how can we complain?

Indeed, the sheer force of Mame's personality is such that it obscures her positive, substantive qualities: generosity, tolerance, open-mindedness, sense of adventure, and perhaps most of all, impatience with pretense, snobbery and prejudice.

The above commentary notwithstanding, somehow I always think of Auntie Mame as a musical without musical numbers, probably due to its high gloss look (especially Orry-Kelly’s splendiferous costumes) and Bronislau Kaper’s by turns frothy and sentimental score. And while the film has a widescreen, plush look so typical of the era, suggesting MGM or Fox, it was actually produced, and only rightly so, by Warners, the most pre-Code-ish studio of them all.

A few quibbles: yes, Auntie Mame is overlong, by about fifteen minutes, and for me the first half of the film bubbles with a tastier bouquet than the second. But more important, what happened to World War II? Auntie Mame starts in 1928 then quickly progresses to the crash in 1929, after which the chronology gets murky. Anyhow we jump to 1946 and it’s as though the war didn’t exist, a fussy observation perhaps but I found the disconnect distracting. My only other mild reservation is that for all its flourishes Auntie Mame is at heart very talky, and very stagey, gloriously so, but in the end little more than a filmed play. Or, if you like, a series of (mostly wonderful) set pieces, all dominated by the larger-than-life character of Mame herself.

Another minor, and purely packaging, criticism: the DVD print is beautiful to look at – all those sets and costumes are totally scrumptious – but the disk is skimpy on bonus features. You’d think a film as important as Auntie Mame merits the deluxe edition treatment with commentary, featurette, interviews, etc. Maybe Criterion can be persuaded to release it in the future.

It would be an understatement to say this is Rosalind Russell’s signature role. I’ll invoke the tired cliché: this was the character – and what a character! – she was born to play. She projects with incomparable panache all of Mame’s exuberantly flamboyant glory. However – the supporting performances are wonderful too. I’m especially partial to Joanna Barnes's empty-headed socialite, and even more so, Coral Browne’s alcoholic diva, who’s just as over-the-top as Mame herself and matches her quip for quip. The only misfire among the secondary players is Peggy Cass as Miss Gooch, both the character and the performance.

In sum, Auntie Mame is an always welcome dose of joie-de-vivre and feel good energy. In those times when I'm feeling down or have a world-is-too-much feeling, I play the DVD, or conjure up the memory, and revel in the film’s generous, warm-hearted glory. And for a time, the world is a happy place again.

Further reading:
Les Fabian Brathwaite, Hays’d: Decoding the Classics — Auntie Mame
Richard Tyler Jordan, But darling, I'm your Auntie Mame! : the amazing history of the world's favorite aunt, Kensington Books, c2004.
Eric Meyers, Uncle Mame : the life of Patrick Dennis, St. Martin’s, 2000.

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966)

   Jesse James meets Frankenstein's daughter. Scarborough, ME: Elite Entertainment, 2003. Circle Productions Inc. presents; produced by Carroll Case; written by Carl Hittleman; directed by William Beaudine. 1DVD (85 min.). Originally produced as a motion picture in 1966. Special features include commentary by Joe Bob Briggs and trailer. Cast: John Lupton, Narda Onyx, Cal Bolder, Estelita, Jim Davis, Rayford Barnes, William Fawcett, Nestor Paiva.
   Summary: Jesse James and his sidekick Hank are on the run after a botched stagecoach robbery. Hank is seriously injured in the shootout. Both Jesse and Hank are taken in by a mysterious doctor with a thick Euro accent. It turns out the lady is Baron Frankenstein’s granddaughter Maria, who is conducting shady experiments at her makeshift castle, transformed from a former mission.


   Roundly savaged by critics and cinema buffs alike, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter is the proverbial guilty pleasure. Even so, some of us don’t think it’s nearly as bad as its reputation, as is evidenced by its continuing status as a cult classic [1]. For better or worse, better I think, JJMFD has an old school vibe to it, more akin to Fifties and even Forties westerns, and as a result very much out of touch with Sixties trends and sensibilities. In any case JJMFD was produced as half of a double feature with the similarly absurdly titled – with an equally absurd concept – Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, both directed by veteran B movie auteur William Beaudine. Opinions vary as to which is the superior effort: the consensus favors vs. Dracula though, as I often do, here I go against the grain and prefer JJMFD because it’s more over-the-top and just plain more fun. Why is it more fun? The answer in two words: Narda Onyx. But I get ahead of myself.

"I still have you, Igor."

   To begin, let’s clear up a frequent criticism of Daughter. The film is often maligned for having an incorrect title. Well, yes and no. Technically the title is correct, if a little misleading: our, um, heroine, Maria Frankenstein, is indeed Frankenstein’s daughter, but her father is the son of the great doctor (Henry Frankenstein in the Karloff movies and Victor Frankenstein in the novel). Thus yes, to be sure Maria is the grand-daughter of Dr. Frankenstein. By the way Maria identifies more with said grandfather and thus wants to continue his nefarious experiments in the more lightning-friendly American Southwest [2]. She considered her own father too much of a wuss in his reluctance to continue the Baron’s tradition of infamy.
   Trivia: in JJMFD Maria refers to Dr. Frankenstein as The Count. Actually he was always The Baron. It’s a surprising mistake: maybe the writers got their movie villains mixed up. Wasn’t there a count in another series of horror films, a Transylvanian fellow, or something?

  Speaking of the devil in the details, geographically Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter is a bit on the obscure side. The exact location is never spelled out, though in the dialogue the American Southwest gets a mention. Commentators have varyingly listed Mexico, Arizona, (New) Mexico or a generic Southwest or Western U.S., presumably near the border. The name of Juanita’s small town is never revealed, though ‘Prescott’ is mentioned once, more or less in passing, but the real town of Prescott, Arizona, seems too far away from the border to be a viable candidate. Along the way a place called ‘Shelby’ assumes some importance. There actually is a Shelby, Texas, but located as it is in the southeast central part of the state again the geography doesn’t work. Bisbee (Az.) is mentioned once, in passing, and actually fits geographically, located as it is only a few miles from the Mexican border. However – since so many locations are casually tossed about in the story, it’s difficult to pin down one place definitively as the setting for JJMFD.

   For all its imperfections Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter isn’t really a bad movie. Belying its reputation as a Poverty Row-like production, it has some pretty impressive talent in front of and behind the camera, and it shows in the final product. Whatever the reason, the western scenes seem a little more secure and polished, perhaps due to director Beaudine's experience in the genre. Nonetheless, the more rough-around-the-edges episodes at the mad scientist lab are far more entertaining, mostly due to Maria Frankenstein's unabashed histrionics, further discussed below. JJMFD is perhaps most admirable for getting the most out of a shoestring budget and short shooting schedule (reportedly seven days). There’s fine work from a competent, if mostly uninspired, cast. The sets and period detail, especially the furniture and mission architecture, are actually pretty good, and the Wild West atmosphere is nicely conveyed. Finally, the film’s color look is up to the standards of the era though nothing spectacular.

“you should have stayed in Europe and given pink pills to sweet old ladies”

   But best of all is Narda Onyx in the performance of a career. She inhabits the role of Maria with a fierce intensity lost on the other performers, the one possible exception being Estelita as the virtuous Juanita. And for all her scenery chewing Miss Onyx plays it deadpan straight without a touch of irony or self-conscious camp. In Miss Onyx’s marvelous portrayal Maria Frankenstein seems to be channeling her inner dominatrix, especially when she’s giving orders to her hapless brother Rudolph, always with a hint of the threat of physical violence for non-compliance. Naturally he cowers in her presence and obeys her every command (even while he secretly sabotages her ghastly experiments).
   Furthermore, the character of Maria enters that exclusive pantheon of female mad scientists, as well as the even more restrictive subgroup of the amorous female mad scientist (she has an immediate attraction to Jesse) [3].

   Speaking of things amorous, in addition to her gloriously over-the-top performance, Miss Onyx is very sexy in the role, this despite the bulky dresses and lab smocks she wears [4] (her echt-Central European accent compensates). She’s just as alluring as Jesse’s love interest Juanita (Estelita), who’s no slouch in the looks department and a lot nicer human being, though truth be told, Estelita has much the same fiery attitude as that of Maria. Why is it that evil women characters (e.g. the Bond villainesses) are always the most sexy? Ergo Maria is at her evil seductress best, accent-wise, when she goes into full on Mrs. Dracula mode in those scenes when she’s doing her most dastardly deeds.

   A perusal of IMDB reveals Narda Onyx’s credits as almost totally in television, not film [5]. Certainly I’ve not seen all her TV appearances, not even a minimum of them, but if what I have seen is any indication she was probably typecast as mysterious exotics or sinister villains. In view of her incredible theatricality and screen charisma in JJMFD we can only sigh and ponder the waste of a career, or can we? Had she not left the movies after JJMFD what would have become of her acting endeavors? Maybe her talents could have been harnessed and better served in more worthy vehicles. Or would she have been relegated to similar B material?

   In any event the last quarter century of Miss Onyx’s life is a blank, at least with regard to any mention in the public record. Searches online and elsewhere yield nothing except that her death took place in 1991 in Ventura, Ca., at age 59. Did she simply retire to private life after JJMFD? Was the film such an embarrassment she wanted to wash her hands of the movie business altogether? Whatever the explanation, and whether or not she considered the character of Maria Frankenstein beneath her dignity, Miss Onyx seems to be having a rousing good time playing the role.

   Trivia: JJMFD was the swansong for several of the principals associated with the film. As mentioned above it was Narda Onyx’s last film before she disappeared from public life. Similarly, it was the last movie William Beaudine directed. JJMFD was the last film for Cal Bolder though he appeared in a few television series later. JJMFD was Steven Geray’s penultimate film (he had a bit part in something called The Swinger later that year). And finally Estelita Rodriguez died under mysterious circumstances only a few months after the filming of JJMFD [6].
     On the other hand, veterans Jim Davis and John Lupton went on to lengthy careers. Davis by the way appeared (also as a lawman) in the cult classic Dracula vs. Frankenstein, which if anything has a lower reputation than Jesse James Meets Franknstein’s Daughter.

   Still, time has been kind to Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter: there's not a lot that's new in the film, but not a lot that's wrong either. Approached in a certain frame of mind, JJMFD can be immensely entertaining, and not just in a bad movie sort of way. However ... we can only guess what the result would have been had JJMFD been given the A-picture treatment by a more or less reputable company like Hammer. Much of the atmosphere and charm would likely have been lost. In addition, the  necessary American flavor might well have been compromised had such a quintessentially British operation been at the controls. 

 [1] Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter rates a pitiful 3.2 stars out of 10 on IMDB. On the other hand, it gets a somewhat inexplicable 4.5 stars (out of 5) on Amazon. Go figure.

[2] Just what are Maria’s motives in continuing with the experiments? Well, as mentioned above, the devil is in the details. Translation: it’s all a little vague. One take is that she simply wants to perpetuate the, uh, glory of the Frankenstein tradition. Another possibility is that she wants to create a race of Übermenschen, the ultimate goal being – you guessed it – to take over the world.
    Indeed, with her dominatrix tendencies, take-no-prisoners attitude, and the hint of sexual perversion, all coupled with her thick Central European accent, Maria Frankenstein both looks back to the lethally exotic versions of the Forties femmes fatales, and even more so, anticipates the most extreme manifestations that would appear a decade or so later in the notorious Nazisploitation movies, most notably Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.

    As for Maria's plans for Hank/Igor, in addition to being her bodyguard and all around strong man, there's the suggestion that he will become her sex slave as well. However, the message is so subtle that it can be read either way, or not at all.

[3] In referring to women, the term ‘amorous’ always seemed to me more decorous than ‘horny’. Speaking of amorous, mention must also be made of the 1971 potboiler Lady Frankenstein, in which we have a highly eroticized Tanya Frankenstein (Rosalba Neri), who just happens to be Dr. Frankenstein's daughter. Like Maria Frankenstein in JJMFD, Tanya wants to continue her father's pushing-the-boundaries experiments. By the way Dr. Frankenstein is portrayed, improbably, by Joseph Cotten, who actually does a pretty good job in what was obviously not the high point of his career. Indeed, few actors are as quintessentially American in demeanor, looks and accent as Joseph Cotten, so he seems an eccentric choice to play the echt-Central European Victor Frankenstein. However, he makes an earnest attempt at the role and for the most part succeeds.
    Aside: the great Michael Gough is hors concours for the mantle of the lecherous male mad scientist. In Konga, he has the hots for his favorite student Sandra (Claire Gordon), much to the displeasure of his girlfriend assistant and wife wannabe Margaret (Margo Johns). In fact, Gough's monomaniacal Dr. Decker has much in common with Narda Onyx's over-the-top take as Maria Frankenstein, both the character and the performance.
    George Zucco rates honorable mention in the lecherous department for lusting after leading ladies Peggy Moran in The Mummy's Hand and Evelyn Ankers in The Mad Ghoul. Also worthy of a shout-out is the poverty row cheapie The Monster Maker, in which an incredibly oily mad doctor J. Carrol Nash has an obsessive infatuation for beautiful socialite Wanda McKay. And though he's not a mad scientist, unhinged ventriloquist Bryant Halliday in Devil Doll has a decidedly lecherous side. 

    Other memorable, not necessarily amorous, women mad scientists include Rafaela Ottiano in Devil Doll (1936) and Katherine Victor in Teenage Zombies (1959). Victor also appeared in the cult favorite Frankenstein Island (1981), essaying yet another Dr. Frankenstein descendant, this time the doctor's great-granddaughter. Then there's the lesbian mad scientist (Louise Lewis) in Blood of Dracula (1957).

[4] The one exception is when she dons traditional Spanish señorita attire in a failed attempt to bring Jesse into her sphere of evil by using her female wiles. Predictably she is not thrilled when Jesse rejects her and all her haughty pedigree in favor of the Mexican peasant girl. In her woman scorned fury Maria concocts a devious plan to exact a terrible revenge upon Jesse.

[5] Her very thin film résumé includes another infamous role, Greta Braun in Hitler (1962). She also managed to write a book around the same time, the subject matter being of all things a biography of Johnny Weismuller, titled Water, World and Weismuller: a Biography, VION, 1964.

[6] Estelita Rodriguez was reportedly working on a cinematic portrait of Lupe Velez when she died. In the film she was to appear as the famed Mexican film star of the Forties.

Further reading: Johnny D. Boggs, Jesse James and the Movies, McFarland, 2011, pp. 187-89; Senn Bryan, "Twice the Thrills! Twice the Chills!": Horror and Science Fiction Double Features, 1955-1974, McFarland, 2019, pp. 267-68; James R. Durham and Howard W. Marshall, "Review of 'Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter' by Circle Productions." Folklore Forum 4(5):130-132 (1971); Lissette Lopez Szwydkys, and Michelle L. Pribbernowy, “Women Scientists in Frankenstein Films, 1945-2015,” Science Fiction Film & Television, v11 n2: 303-339.