wrong turn: Carnival of Souls (1962)

    Carnival of Souls. The Criterion Collection, no. 63 [New York, N.Y.], 2016. DVD. 2016. Two-DVD special edition. 2 videodiscs (78 min.): black and white; 1 booklet. ISBN: 9781681431772, 1681431777. OCLC Number 950981645.
    Herk Harvey, director & producer; John Clifford, screenwriter; Maurice Prather, Gene Moore, Dan Palmquist, editors; Maurice Prather, director of photography; Gene Moore, composer. Performers: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sidney L. Berger, Art Ellison, Herk Harvey.  
    Summary: a young woman in a small Kansas town is haunted by strange images and events after she experiences a car crash. She agrees to take a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. En route, she is haunted by a bizarre apparition that compels her toward an abandoned lakeside pavilion. Made by industrial filmmakers on a small budget (reportedly $33,000), this low-keyed horror film was little noticed upon its initial release but over the years has attained the status of cult classic. Filmed on location in and around Lawrence, Kansas, and Salt Lake City, Utah.
    Special features: Disc 1. Selected-scene audio commentary featuring director Herk Harvey and screenwriter John Clifford; deleted scenes; outtakes, accompanied by Gene Moore's organ score. Disc 2. Final Destination: new interview with comedian and writer Dana Gould; Regards from Nowhere: new video essay by film critic David Caims; The Movie That Wouldn't Die!, a documentary on the 1989 reunion of the film's cast and crew; The carnival tour, a 2000 update on the film's locations; excerpts from movies made by the Centron Corporation an industrial film company based in Lawrence, Kansas that once employed Harvey and Clifford; history of the Saltair Resort in Salt Lake City, where scenes in the film were shot; trailer; essay by writer and programmer Kier-La Janisse (insert).


   “I don’t belong in this world.”

  [Note: minor SPOILERS in the comments below.]  Carnival of Souls is such an established cult classic, complete with dedicated fanbase, that I’m pretty much embarrassed to write about it, since what I offer will largely repeat what’s already been said by commentators more astute than I. Nonetheless … as my local library only has a grainy public domain copy, my recently stumbling onto a pristine print of Souls via the tv program Harvey’s Festival of Fear was a fortuitous accident that compels me to opine a bit about my continued appreciation of this one-of-a-kind, still largely under-the-radar masterpiece.
    For all its positive qualities, technically and otherwise, describing the content of Souls is quite the slippery slope. With its shifting center of gravity and shaky narrative one stumbles as to articulate exactly what the film is, insofar as genre is concerned. [1] Psychological horror? Supernatural noir? Neo-surrealist? Well, it’s not really horror, not noir at all, and barely supernatural. Possibly surreal. Definitely psychological. Even more difficult is any attempt to define what message is being conveyed, and for that matter if Souls is a ‘message movie’ at all. To be sure the film has been dissected, spiced, sliced and diced from varying points of view, both online and in print, so I’ll do my best not to go over ground that’s already been covered, but rather offer some personal observations. Aside: based on my own, very unscientific, perusal of writings online it seems the most frequent critical takes on Carnival of Souls are from the feminist and queer perspectives.
 

    Whatever its genre or message, Souls gets better with repeated viewings, and this includes the performers. Candance Hilligoss as Mary gives a wondrous performance, and her nuanced interpretation captures the character perfectly. The supporting and bit players, too, semi-professional at best as they are, do a terrific job. Actually I think the lack of professional actors adds to the story’s verisimilitude, along with the on-location real life locales and the low-keyed, documentary-like presentation of the story. In fact everything about the film is handled with such a sure hand for a first-time, apparently only time, feature film director that we might be forgiven for thinking that the unseen presence of Orson Welles is somewhere in the mix, guiding things along. Indeed there are many Welles-like tableaux along the way, and the comparison of the abandoned pavilion in Souls to the funhouse in The Lady from Shanghai is almost too facile, but I’ll make it anyway.
    Getting back to the cast, I’d be remiss not to mention the performance of Sidney Berger, who plays John Linden, Mary’s lecherous neighbor next door. Like the film itself, he also gets, shall we say, better with repeated viewings, not because he becomes more likeable, but because Mr. Berger’s take is so real, and so natural, removed as it is from the precious affectations of ‘acting.’ To be sure, John is among the most irritating characters in the history of cinema, and it’s one of our crosses to bear that we have to endure his endless come-ons to Mary in order to get to the really good stuff in the film.
    But subsequent viewings reveal the character of John to be, well, if not exactly sympathetic, then at least human, and we can to some extent understand, though not necessarily excuse, his behavior. John is doubtless self-conscious of his proletarian roots and current blue collar status. Thus he sees the regal Mary as quite the catch and a chance to date up. [2] Most of us guys at one time or another in our lives have wanted a woman who was out of our league, and after a rebuff or two we had to suck it up and move on to more suitable company. But John just won’t walk away. His approach is to ratchet up the pressure, and Berger’s all too real performance captures his unsettling combination of imploring, cajoling and implied threat.
    To be fair, if we can be fair to such a jerk, Mary’s hot and cold messages to John can be an understandable source of frustration and confusion, but his misguided strategy is to turn up the heat even more. Maybe it’s the best he can do. It’s ultimately to his credit that when she freaks out after seeing The Man yet again he leaves the situation pronto. Hot item Mary may be, John doesn’t want to deal with a crazy woman. [3]. And we breathe a sigh of relief at his departure. Indeed this is when the film’s highest octane emotional juice really begins to kick in.
   But perhaps a detour to talk about Mary’s possible lesbian inclinations. In the film’s very first image we see Mary, rather incongruously, in a car with two butch girls. By the way why would a class act like Mary be in a car joy riding with a couple of juvenile delinquents in the first place? Are the three a Sapphic ménage à trois? Is this a tipoff, as early as the first scene, of Mary’s latent, or not so latent, lesbianism? Well, maybe, and maybe not. It’s true that later on in the film Mary tells the doctor she’s never had any boyfriends, or felt the need for close (heterosexual) relationships. But if we were to describe Mary’s attitude as to close friendships, it would be asexual, certainly appropriate for a walking ghost. This is reinforced by her skittish responses to John’s romantic overtures: she says yes, sort of, but her actions – her constant pulling away from John’s affectionate entreaties as if disgusted by them – imply no.
    Getting back to things remiss, it would be criminal not to mention Gene Moore’s murky organ music. Its off-kilter harmonies recall the spooky music we hear in Last Year at Marienbad, a film not unlike Souls in its dreamlike ambience and somnambulist characters. By the way, the minister’s sacking Mary for playing a few dissonant chords, when the church is empty at that, seems an extreme punishment, almost to the point of absurdist.
    One could go on and on, given the film’s many confluences and connections. Indeed film scholars  and just plain enthusiasts have gone on and on. But bottom line is: what is it that makes Carnival of Souls such an enduring classic? Some would say the character of Mary: cool, ambiguous, distant, self-possessed, a Hitchcock blonde without the fire underneath. But then again there’s the Saltair pavilion, creepy, other worldly, with its Moorish design giving the impression of levitation. And for some it’s something more undefinable, not so easy to get hold of, like the movie itself. We might call it mood or atmosphere. The uneasy sense of the not quite real, not quite being there, a combination of the quirkily surreal and down-home prosaic. Ultimately Carnival of Souls invites multiple interpretations, but its emotional core remains the same. Like Mary, we search for something. For some of us it’s a sense of belonging, or meaning, for others the redeeming beauty of art, still for others simply the desire to go home. But, at least in the case of Mary, the search is only realized in that ultimate release, death itself. 
   [Update, 30 April 2626: I recently had the great pleasure of catching the 3-D version of Souls at our local arthouse theater. Truth be told, I wasn't that fond of the 3-D effects but it was a treat to finally see this genuine classic on the big screen. Three-dimensional or no, it's still a great movie.]

  [1]  Carnival of Souls may well fall into the curious subgenre sometimes referred to as the spectral icognizance film (Briefel, 2009),* in which a subject doesn’t realize his/her own death and gradually learns to the truth. The trope was a favorite of the Twilight Zone, used to great effect especially in the ‘After Hours’ and ‘Hitchhiker’ episodes. Movies that employ a spectral insognizance theme or flirt with the idea include The Others, Last Year at Marienbad, DOA, Dementia/Daughter of Horror, and Sixth Sense.    
     * Souls has also been cited as being a representative of the ‘highway horror’ subgenre (Murphy 2017).
    
   [2] In his crude, rough-around-the-edges way John represents life, and thus he gravitates to things that would give pleasure to a living human being: coffee, food, alcohol, dancing, bars, human company, not least the company of women. By contrast Mary doesn’t quite belong among the living, ergo her resistance to John’s advances. She has no passion in life, except perhaps her music, and even here she seems under the control of something outside herself. Everyone else in Souls, even in a limited way, represents death, not least being The Man, whom we could call the angel of death, but in this context might be might be seen as a competitor for Mary’s affections. If The Man and John are indeed rivals, it’s no great mystery as to who will win this competition. Just when Mary seems to accede, however reluctantly, to John’s romantic overtures and their implied inevitable culmination in the sex act, The Man intervenes in most timely (or is it untimely) fashion. Mary goes full-on hysterical and gradually retreats into madness. As for John, he simply disappears from the movie.

    [3] It’s not only Mary who acts weird: nearly everyone - and everything - in Souls is a little off. Mary's hand movements at the organ never match the music she's performing; she manipulates the organ footpedals barefoot; landlady Frances Feist is both blandly reassuring and a little bit creepy; the minister and psychiatrist attempt, in their clumsy, eminently patriarchal ways, to fix Mary;** and the guy at the drinking fountain in the park is just plain bizarre. Of course all the ghouls who menace Mary, most conspicuously The Man, are by definition strange, if toned down and almost benevolent compared to their siblings in, say, Night of the Living Dead. About the only normal character in Souls is, counter intuitively, John, simply because he is so real, and in his way, upfront about being such a slimebag.
    Insofar as the way it presents the character of Mary, Carnival of Souls is a mildly subversive work in that it portrays Mary as an independent woman who resolutely insists on going her own way. Thus, and eminently apropos for a cult movie, she resonates with those who are just different – eccentrics, gays, introverts, bohemians, and yes (by the standards of the era), independent-minded women, all of whom, like Mary, don’t fit into the world in a conventional way and who want to stop at their own Saltair to enjoy the baths and smell the roses.
     ** The heavy-handed approach of both almost smacks of conversion therapy. Hooray for Mary for resisting these bumbling attempts to control her, or at least guide her to the light.

Further reading:

    Aviva Briefel, “What Some Ghosts Don’t Know: Spectral Incognizance and the Horror Film,” Narrative, v17, n1 (January 2009), pp 95-108
    Kimberley Monteyne, “From the Question of Soul to a Carnival of Souls,” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, v58 n1 (Fall 2018), pp 24-46
    Bernice M. Murphy, Carnival of Souls (1962) and the Highway Safety Film, FORUM 24 (Spring 2017)  
    James Riley, “Have You No Respect? Do You Feel No Reverence?: Narrative and Critical Subversion in Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls,” in: Crash Cinema: Representation in Film, edited by Will Godfrey, Jill Good, Mark Goodall, Cambridge Scholars, 2007, pp 14-24
    Lawrence A. Walz, “Mary Henry’s Journey from Owl Creek Bridge,” Literature/Film Quarterly v23, n4  (1995), pp 262-65

remembrance of things past: Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

   L'année dernière a Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad). Cocinor présente; Pierre Courau et Raymond Froment présentent; scénario et dialogues, Alain Robbe-Grillet; réalisation, Alain Resnais. New York, NY: Kino Lorber, c[2019]. Widescreen. Originally released as a motion picture in 1961. Performers: Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pioëff. Extras: audio commentary; trailers; booklet essay; interview with filmmaker and more. Director of photography, Sacha Vierny; editors, Henri Colpi, Jasmine Chasney; music, Francis Seyrig.
     Summary: a man is convinced he met an enigmatic woman the previous year at the same location, and they perhaps had a flirtation. A second man, possibly the woman's lover or husband, or psychiatrist, repeatedly intimidates the first man. Their relations unfold through flashback shards that never quite fit into place, their lives a hall of mirrors that never reveal a true self.


      it seems that we have met before ...

      I stumbled upon Last Year at Marienbad purely by accident. Would that I could offer a more edifying account, but truth be told I was perusing one of my favorite tomes on film, DK’s excellent The Movie Book, and being on something of a French movies kick lately I turned to the New Wave section, and there it was, in a full two-page essay. I admit it was the familiar wide-angle photo of the gardens that hooked me and convinced me I had to see this movie. And I’m glad I did. By the way the Kino Lorber DVD looks absolutely smashing and confirms the film’s repute as one of the most beautiful black and white films of all time.
     Marienbad’s story, such as it is, is pitifully thin: in an indeterminate time (probably the early Twentieth Century), at a luxury chateau in central Europe, a man claims he met a woman there, or somewhere, the previous year, while other well-heeled guests lurk zombie-like in the background.
     In many respects Marienbad is a profoundly unsettling film – dreamlike, funny, romantic, absurdist, self-parodic, and frightening. It both challenges and plays tricks on us in the subterranean realms of our conscious and unconscious experience. In other words, it veritably dances with, through, and around, our memory. Now over six decades vintage, Marienbad has inspired hundreds of thousands, probably millions of words, ranging from the damning to the adulatory. And every possible interpretation of its enigmatic structure and content, provided by intellects far keener than mine, has been attempted: feminist, behaviorist, romanticist, Freudian, supernatural, socio-economic, political, literary, and of course purely cinematic takes have spewed forth over time. Thus those of us who have experienced its seductive powers more recently and feel the urge to write something about it are in the embarrassing position of simply belaboring the obvious or repeating what’s already been repeated before. Still, I offer my two cents.
     Beginning at the end, as it were: as I make my way through Kino’s incredibly generous helping of bonus features my favorite is Memories of Last Year at Marienbad [1]. With German narration and done in eminently behind-the-scenes style, this documentary gives us an informal look at the production history of Last Year at Marienbad. Comprised of raw footage from the shooting of the film that was captured on 8mm stock and at just under 50 minutes, Memories is practically a short feature film in itself and almost as compelling and enigmatic as the original. Ranking a close second among the extras is Resnais's short film (21 min.) All the Memory of the World (Toute la mémoire du monde), which looks like a warm-up for Marienbad with its smoothly gliding camera inside a cavernous edifice. After all, what could be a better metaphor for memory than the memories contained in their tangible, albeit fragile form, books? Indeed the Bibliothèque Nationale might well claim to have 'all the memory of the world,' but aren't all libraries really caches of memory?

    
the greatest movie(s) of all time?

     But now a digression for some editorial comment: in vain I looked for Marienbad to be listed, if not in the top ten, then certainly the top twenty, of the most recent (2022) incarnation of BFI’s/Sight and Sound’s much vaunted poll of the greatest movies of all time. I’ll try to avoid the throwaway lines that any compilation, be it made by an individual, or committee (however august) of ‘greatest movies’ is intensely subjective and more or less useless, but nonetheless always grist for lively controversy. Moreover, it’s fun and satisfying to see one’s pet favorites turn up among the listees. Anyhow as you might suspect I was intensely disappointed to discover that Marienbad didn’t even crack the top 100, and it’s cold comfort to see it listed as tied for 169th place in the critics' poll, which must qualify as a respectable honorable mention. Kudos to those seventeen critics and seven directors (from the 1,639 critics and 480 directors who participated) who voted for it [2]. Some further research yielded that Marienbad tied for 26th in the 1962 poll, which in this writer’s humble opinion is much closer to its actual artistic worth, though still underrated. By the way the films it was tied with in 1962 were: Tokyo Story, Intolerance, Pickpocket, Wild Strawberries, Night and Fog, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and Limelight. Some pretty fast company indeed [3]. That it could have slid so far in the intervening six decades is a bit of a mystery – great films are supposed to gain in stature over time. But the explanation may be that, in the intervening sixty years, thousands of feature films have been released and there’s simply more competition for the top spots, also that a larger mix of critics gives us different results. It must also be admitted that some prominent critical luminaries famously panned the film upon its initial release, and some still do, so best to simply place it all in the to-each-his-own-taste file – however questionable that taste may be.
     In any event, and getting back to the film itself: inasmuch as Marienbad’s influence has been discussed, at length, in the critical and scholarly literature, less attention has been paid to its antecedents, i.e. the films that anticipated its lush, dreamlike glory. The poetic aspects and surreal visuals recall Cocteau’s Orphée and La Belle et La Bête, and the visual poetry even brings to mind Bresson’s Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne. Marienbad also mirrors Dames’ comedy-of-manners tone in which the well-turned supporting characters float, trance-like, around the principals. Moreover, the relationship between the hero and heroine in Marienbad has parallels to the relationship between Paul Bernard and Élina Labourdette in Les Dames and that of Jean Marais and Josette Day in La Bête. The sumptuous, baroque design qualities have an obvious precedent in L'Herbier’s L'Inhumaine. And here and there we even see traces of, of all films, Metropolis. The symbolic game of cards and matchsticks recalls the chess duel in The Seventh Seal, and indeed it’s not so much of a reach to see Marienbad as a Bergmanesque film. Other precursors might include Kurosawa’s Rashomon and of course Citizen Kane, each film being, among other things, a meditation on the shifting perception of memory, recollection and indeed reality itself [4]. And the references to Hitchcock's Vertigo (which appeared only a couple years prior) are almost too obvious that I don't have to mention them - but I will. Or does Marienbad's pedigree go back even further, much further? Some see Marienbad as a rerun of the Orphic legend from Greek mythology.

     The floating, somnambulist vibe of the characters (both major and minor), the relentlessly prowling camera, and the general disjointedness of the narrative recall the experimental fantasies of Maya Deren from the 1940s. Similarly, there’s a whiff of John Parker‘s noirish nightmare of a film, Dementia/Daughter of Horror, which likewise plays tricks with recall, repression and the nature of reality [5]. Echoes of Marienbad’s dreamlike, surreal ambience even find their way into American television shows of the era like One Step Beyond and The Twilight Zone (especially the 'After Hours' episode). But for me the two films that are conjured up when I watch Marienbad bookend it a year apart in either direction: La Dolce Vita and Carnival of Souls [6], the latter right down to the creepy organ music backdrop.
     But ultimately the film must be accepted on its own terms and stand on its own merits, which are considerable if far from universally accepted. Some complain that Last Year at Marienbad is all surface and no substance, and this opinion isn’t too far off the mark, and maybe that’s exactly the point: that the most pleasurable way to experience Marienbad is simply to marvel at the incredible visual (and aural) beauty of the film, the smoothly gliding camera work, Chanel’s scrumptious wardrobe for Delphine Seyrig, and the other innumerable, purely stylistic, felicities, and leave the cosmic insights to someone else.
     That the film is a masterpiece is excruciatingly, even dismayingly, self-evident. Nonetheless, it would be terribly elitist and condescending to say that those who dismiss, ridicule or outright hate the movie simply don’t understand it, so I won’t say it. But herein is the great irony: there’s not that much to understand about the film. Permanently frozen in a (probably) 1930s gestalt that’s at once modern, timely and timeless, Last Year at Marienbad is at heart a very simple movie.

   [1] In this rough-around-the-edges, gauzy, cloudy home movie version of the making of Marienbad, putting the word ‘memories’ at the beginning of the title is supremely apt, because the film Last Year at Marienbad is about, more than anything else, memory and the elusive, unreliable nature of memories. Memories of Last Year at Marienbad’s fuzzy, flickering images are a perfect metaphor for Marienbad’s uncertain, always shifting center of gravity and the fleeting images of memory itself.
   Aside: a recent viewing of Last Year at Marienbad inspires me to rethink this interpretation: is the film really really about memory? Or is it about, to put it diplomatically, 'persuasion.' As seen through 21st century eyes, our would be suitor's, however (ostensibly) gentlemanly, pursuit of the woman often inspires a bad odour. His insistence and relentlessness are pretty close to what present sensibilities would label stalking.
   [2] Interesting bit of trivia: in the 2012 poll a nearly exact same number (sixteen critics and seven directors) voted for Marienbad. Does this imply a solidifying of its (still undervalued) reputation by those in the know?
   [3] Fast company is right, well, maybe. It’s a mixed verdict of how these once-formidable movies have fared in critical esteem in the six subsequent decades. In the 2022 critics’ poll, the films cited from 1962 placed, respectively: Tokyo Story 4 (ranks #4 in the directors’ poll as well); Intolerance, tied 225; Pickpocket, tied 136; Wild Strawberries, tied 108; Night and Fog, not ranked [among the top 250]; The Passion of Joan of Arc, tied 21; Limelight, not ranked.
     There'a certain ironic justice in that Delphine Seyrig, who plays Last Year at Marienbad's enigmatic heroine, is the lead in the (at least for the time being) officially anointed 'greatest movie of all time,' Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (2022 BFI/S&S critics' poll).
   [4] It’s probably not too much of an exaggeration to cite Orson Welles as the great unseen presence on so many black and white films (including French New Wave) from the classic era of roughly 1940-1965.  
   [5] A novel, if not unique, interpretation of the film is that Marienbad is more or less a ghost story in which the characters are ghosts who wander about in a purgatorial netherworld, though whether they know they are ghosts or not, and exactly where they’re all headed is a bit, quite a bit actually, unclear. The ghost story meme is reinforced by the mortuarial organ music which the film shares with the above-referenced American horror cult classic Carnival of Souls, which appeared at almost the same time and similarly has a spectral incognizance subtext.
    My own rather idiosyncratic but probably not totally original take is that the film is basically visualized poetry: our narrator’s sing-song delivery and the vague, poetic nature of the words he speaks suggest this. In this regard we may see his narrative as poetry disguised as prose and the film itself as poetic imagery disguised as narrative film. Some might see it as a filmic representation of a dream, but aren’t all movies to some extent?
[6] Such seemingly unlikely choices are, on further reflection, eminently (if arguably) apropos in the context of comparison with a film that's itself about hazily recalled confluences and connections.

the poetry of lost souls: Night of the Iguana (1964)

Editor’s note: minor spoilers in the comments below.

Night of the Iguana. Burbank, CA: Turner Entertainment, distributed by Warner Home Video, c2006. Originally released as a motion picture in 1964. John Huston, director; Gabriel Figueroa, director of photography; Ray Stark, producer; John Huston, Anthony Veiller, script. Based on the play by Tennessee Williams. Performers: Richard Burton; Ava Gardner; Deborah Kerr; Sue Lyon; Grayson Hall; James Ward; Cyril Delevanti. Featurettes: “The Night of the Iguana: Huston’s Gamble;” “On the Trail of the Iguana.”
   Summary: a defrocked, alcoholic, American minister becomes a tour guide, and while travelling in Mexico with a bus-load of school teachers and their 18-year old charge, becomes entangled with the girl, with a woman of eloquence and wisdom, and with an earthy and beautiful former love.

Sometimes the events and personalities surrounding the making of a movie are as legendary as the final product itself. Conspicuous examples might include Gone with the Wind and Citizen Kane, two more or less contemporaneous exemplars from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Jump forward a generation or so and we have Night of the Iguana, which certainly fits the sensationalist mold but with an unmistakable early ‘Sixties vibe. The circumstances involved in the making of the film have been much discussed and thus we’ll not duplicate here, but rather concentrate on the merits of the film itself.

I’ve not seen or read the Tennessee Williams original and can’t say whether the cinematic treatment represents an improvement on, or falls short of, the play. What I have inferred from commentary, both online and otherwise, is that the movie, for better or worse, is a condensation and simplification of the play, along with some inevitable softening of more risqué content. However, considering the talent in front of and behind the camera, I can’t help feeling that the film version doesn’t quite deliver the goods, though it stands pretty tall on its own merits. Exactly what I find wanting in Iguana is not so easy to identify, except perhaps my reservations about the black and white look, discussed below. Moreover, repeated viewings reveal an ever growing appreciation of just how good the movie is: like fine wine its metaphysical message mellows and improves with age, perhaps mirroring one’s own mellowing and – we hope – growing in wisdom with the years.

The cast, even the much maligned Sue Lyon, is well nigh perfect. All inhabit their roles so honestly and so well it’s difficult to imagine any other actor assuming the respective parts. Ava Gardner in particular delivers a knockout performance as the rough-around-the-edges Maxine. I have one minor criticism: though her Southern bonafides are impeccable, hailing as she did from North Carolina, her accent doesn’t sound quite right, a little overcooked perhaps as if she’s trying too hard. Otherwise her mildly over-the-top take is spot on [1]. Indeed, this portrayal may be the closest cinematic approximation of the real life woman that we’ll ever get. Of course Burton is wonderful too playing an edge-of-the-ledge character and delivering one of his best edge-of-the-ledge performances [2]. And naturally Deborah Kerr shines as the itinerant sketch artist/grifter with more than a touch of wisdom. Ditto for Cyril Delevanti as her ninety-seven year old grandfather whom she proclaims to be the oldest living and practising poet. 

The Warner DVD includes two featurettes, presented in glorious color, and they underscore the film’s major casualty: being shot in black and white and not in color. Director John Huston felt that all the incredible washes of color would have distracted from the somber mood of the story. But then again he later quipped that he was probably wrong. I tend to go along with Huston’s later assessment. While I’m not unsympathetic to the aesthetic, technical and probably even financial considerations that ultimately went into favoring black & white, to miss out on the incredible ocean vistas and lush tropical foliage, all emblazoned in south-of-border sunlight, seems a squandered opportunity that can never be revisited or redone. To my way of thinking, the color wouldn’t have diminished the story or mood a whit, maybe even improved it. Not the popular opinion perhaps, but there it is. At least we have the two, mostly color, bonus features as a kind of consolation, though, while on the topic of bonuses, a commentary track would have been very much welcome.

That being said, in the context of a black and white movie cinematographic legend Gabriel Figueroa does a stellar job of painting with a chiaroscuro canvas: just the right splash of light (or lightning), just the right camera angle, comingling into the darkness to flesh out (and sometimes obscure) the characters in all their follies and glories. Indeed if anything his low keyed, dare I say it, noirish approach tends to downplay the beautiful natural setting, concentrating as it does on interiors, or quasi-interiors (I’m thinking mostly of the patio and restaurant at Maxine’s place). Thus Benjamin Frankel‘s un-Hollywoodish score – spartan, low keyed, sparingly used – perfectly complements the monochromatic gestalt.

If there’s one misstep in the otherwise pitch perfect tone, it’s Maxine’s two Mexican houseboys and sometimes paramours who assume their beach boy roles with obvious, perhaps too much, relish. In its day this was apparently acceptable comic relief, even a little daring, but today the scenes with the beach boys seem a clumsy attempt at risqué humor and as a result fall flat.

Talky, self indulgent, even a tad pretentious at times, Iguana is still a thing to behold, mostly for the joy of watching great artists perform at the height of their powers. For all the drama that happens on the dark night of the iguana, by the end of the film we know that something has changed. Quite a lot has changed actually, a cosmic shift, tectonic plates moving, or something. All the individuals have had a sort of epiphany, even if its nature is unclear, and it’s to director Huston’s credit that he doesn’t emphasize said change in too heavy-handed a manner. Indeed, we don’t know how things will work out for the principals, especially Maxine and Shannon. We can only wish them well. Miss Jelkes and the tour ladies too.

Williams famously did not care for the ending, but I think it’s just right.

[1] Interesting that Ava Gardner, both the real-life woman and the roles she played, never completely shed her down-home origins, the most obvious tell being the residue of a Southern accent that always came through. Of all the characters she impersonated onscreen, echoing the comments above, the closest to the real woman was probably Maxine, and the fictional character closest to Maxine is arguably the, slightly more polished, playgirl Kelly in Mogambo. Indeed, Kelly might be seen as a warm-up for the earthy, worse-for-wear Maxine of a decade later.
   Kitty Collins of The Killers ranks a close second to Kelly: she possesses much of Maxine’s proletarian street smarts, but otherwise has abandoned any humble beginnings in favor of an uptown, high maintenance, strictly urban lifestyle with its attendant comforts and rewards. By contrast, Kelly, like Maxine, must make do in a rustic, primitive environment.

[2] Special mention must also be made of Grayson Hall for her finely nuanced turn as Shannon's nemesis, the repressed, ostensibly Sapphic Miss Fellowes. For all her shrill, intolerant surface, this is ultimately a sensitive, sympathetic character, and Miss Hall does a brilliant job of capturing the woman’s brittleness – and humanity. (I think she was robbed of an Academy Award). Of course the characters in Iguana are so interesting and complex we want to have more backstory on all of them, especially Miss Fellowes. Of all the principals hers is the most sketchy portrayal. What is her history? What makes her so high strung? Why do she and Shannon rub each other the wrong way to such an extreme?

Further reading: R. Barton Palmer, "John Huston and Postwar Hollywood: The Night of the Iguana (1964) in Context," South Atlantic Review v80 n3-4 (2015), pp. 25-35; Lee Server, Ava Gardner: 'Love is Nothing,' St. Martin's, 2006, pp. 413-29; The Night of the Iguana and Puerto Vallarta.

sunglasses-chic: La Dolce Vita (1960)

La dolce vita. Directed by Federico Fellini. Originally released as a feature film in 1960. Performers: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Anita Ekberg, Yvonne Furneaux, Alain Cuny, Lex Barker. Summary: Rome 1960. A jaded journalist looks for meaning among the beautiful people of Rome, but can’t find it anywhere. La Dolce Vita was the film that rocketed Federico Fellini to international mainstream success by offering a blistering critique of the culture of stardom.


style ****
substance ****



“Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.”  
  - Federico Fellini (1920-1993) 

As we’re creeping up on the hundredth anniversary of Federico Fellini’s birth – and the sixtieth anniversary of the filming and release of La Dolce Vita – it would seem apropos to share some thoughts, focusing on the film's wardrobe design.

But first, a confession: I was never much of a Fellini buff; what I’ve seen has been mostly his later, arguably more accessible, arguably lesser, works like Amarcord, Roma and Ginger & Fred. Thus my education as a fan of classic cinema had a conspicuous gap: I’d never before seen La Dolce Vita all the way through, only snippets. Of course I was aware of its awesome repute and had seen pictures of a beautiful blonde frolicking beside some kind of waterfall. So I looked forward to watching the complete film on DVD. And I wasn’t disappointed. Indeed in my ever-shifting pantheon of all-time favorite movies, Dolce Vita is nudging for a place in the proverbial top ten.

couture as culture

La Dolce Vita-consciousness arrived just in time for the Italian couture industry, which had played second fiddle to France for more than a decade. With Christian Dior’s radically conservative New Look which burst on the scene in 1947, Paris displaced New York and Hollywood as the world’s fashion epicenter and held its lofty position through much of the 1950s. But the Italian fashion industry, with figures like Schuberth, Brioni and the Fontana sisters, gradually crept back into prominence. And with all the attendant ballyhoo surrounding the making of and release of La Dolce Vita, the Italian brand and its sleek look suddenly became the very definition of hip.

This was further reinforced by the large stage provided by the Rome Olympics of 1960: the games were an international sensation and added further momentum to Italy’s growing status as a top-tier player. Henceforth the made-in-Italy imprimatur would carry a cachet the equal of any other national brand. Glamour, cinema and city became interwoven, and Rome chic became the standard for measuring sophistication and cool.

 La Dolce Vita’s cultural repercussions and connections have extended in all sorts of directions. To mention just a couple of examples: the term paparazzi originated as the name of a tenacious celebrity photographer in the film (actually the character’s name was ‘Paparazzo’). The sunglasses and snug black dress worn by Anouk Aimée, along with her svelte physique, find an obvious counterpart in Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly and her über-Sixties look in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Moreover, the collection of cocktail party types Holly ran with in Tiffany’s can be traced directly back to the beau monde who populate Dolce Vita. In fact it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to see Tiffany’s as the American Dolce Vita (though not nearly as good, in this writer’s humble opinion). Perhaps the ultimate nod was given in 1995 when the echt-French fashion house Dior launched a fragrance called ‘Dolce Vita,’ complete with promotional video in the style of Fellini’s film. Even today echoes of La Dolce Vita reverberate in strikingly disparate venues: countless memoirs, documentaries, critiques, advertisements, fashion spreads, novels, parodies, blog posts and tributes have surged forth. The film’s spectacle of relentless photographers and gossip mongers who feed the public’s appetite for the sensational finds a reflection in our own media- and celebrity-obsessed times, whose manifestations are even more stunningly vulgar and would make Dolce Vita’s Marcello and his photographic entourage look like Edward R. Murrow.


those sweet sunglasses

Wardrobe designer Piero Gherardi was also Dolce Vita’s set designer and art director, and accordingly deserves much of the credit for the film’s well-heeled, high gloss look. As for the costumes, with the exception of Marcello, the women do seem to get the better of it. In any case, all the costumes in La Dolce Vita are important; the clothes not only reflect the character, in large part they are the character.

So many worthy exemplars we might cite: the bikini-clad, hat-donning bathing beauties who wave to Marcello and Paparazzo; Madame Steiner’s polka dot one-piece with white collars and white scarf which she wears as the swarming photographers descend upon her; Emma’s black dress, scarf and frumpy coat at the Madonna sighting; the recurring motif of the simple black dress throughout, the most stylish being the two black dresses worn by Maddalena; Sylvia’s demure vestmentlike dress which Gherardi borrowed from the Fontana sisters’ linea cardinale look of a few years prior; the stunning strapless dress Sylvia wears for her impromptu wade in the fountain; the Thai dancers at the night club and their strange get-ups, a good, if mild, example of Fellini-grotesque; Marcello's father’s conservative – if high quality – business suit, striped tie and old school hat which contrasts nicely with the son’s always trendy threads; and of course the impossibly cool sunglasses worn, day or night, by Marcello and Maddalena [1].

Then there's the exotic-looking woman at Steiner's party who sits on the floor strumming a guitar and singing a plaintive tune. She is adorned in toga-like one-piece that suggests ancient Roman garb, topped by gold headpiece. And of course designer Gherardi lavishes much attention on the film’s central protagonist, tabloid journalist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a man who, though short on substance, has style to burn. Mastroianni fast became the embodiment of continental cool with the dark glasses, casually elegant wardrobe and diffident manner. Gherardi dressed his savoir-faire hero in sleek designer suits or snug fitting tuxedo and bow-tie. But the outfit we remember is the white suit he wears in the final scene, though curiously the garb contrasts with the generally dark tones he wears through the rest of the film.

If La Dolce Vita’s louche themes of media corruption and Old World decadence no longer have the power to shock, then its purely cinematic aspects, especially the crisp, widescreen look and brilliant editing, remain amazingly fresh [2]. Indeed viewed from six decades on the only thing about LDV that's shocking is that it's shockingly good. Moreover, there’s a case to be made that La Dolce Vita is the first modern movie, and contributing to the film’s modernist aesthetic in no small way is the wardrobe design. The clothes worn by Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée and the other principals remain perpetually cool and radiate good taste. Far from being dated, the Dolce Vita look – classic, streamlined, understated – holds up exceptionally well. Old is always new again if we wait long enough.

[1] Interesting that Marcello doesn’t wear his sunglasses in the two scenes with his friend and mentor Steiner. It’s as though by removing the glasses he wants to absorb what he perceives to be Steiner’s genuineness of spirit and intellect. Otherwise he uses the glasses as a way to keep the world at bay, allowing him to engage socially only when he chooses to.
[2] Despite the occasional surrealistic flourishes, the visuals in La Dolce Vita are relatively restrained. But the detached visual styling doesn’t preclude an eye for detail, realized through a prowling, fluid camera that captures much but judges little: Fellini doesn’t render a verdict on the foibles of the characters he presents. Rather, and much to his credit, he simply records what he sees and lets the viewer make up his own mind.  

Further reading:

   Grace H. Carrier, La dolce vita: Fellini’s Farewell to the society of the spectacle, NYU Expository Writing Program, New York City, 2015.
   Nicola Certo, "La Dolce Vita today: fashion and media," 2017. CUNY Academic Works.
   Federico Garolla di Bard, Dolce Italia: the beautiful life of Italy in the Fifties and Sixties, Rizzoli, 2005.
   Shawn Levy, Dolce vita confidential: Fellini, Loren, Pucci, paparazzi, and the swinging high life of 1950s Rome, Norton, 2016.
   Eugenia Paulicelli, “Fashioning Rome: cinema, fashion, and the media in the postwar years,” Annali d'Italianistica 28, Capital City: Rome 1870-2010, pp257-278.
   Sonnet Stanfill (ed.), Italian style: fashion since 1945, V&A Publishing, 2014.

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. (Note: JJMFD is not to be confused with the 1958 trash classic Frankenstein's Daughter, starring Sandra Knight and Donald Murphy, and directed by Richard Cunha. )


   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?

it's alive!

  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. And besides, we get the impression that it's not the promise of sex that's the biggest turn-on for Maria, but rather her pushing-the-boundaries experiments and the resultant power their successful completion will give her.

[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 sexualized 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. 
     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).
    Aside: the great Michael Gough is hors concours for the mantle of the lecherous male mad scientist. In Konga (1961), 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. Also worthy of a mention is Dr. Cortner (Jason Evers) of The Brain That Wouldn't Die. His ostensibly 'clinical' search for the perfect female body barely conceals a smoldering lecherousness on his part.
    Perennial mad scientist 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. You've got to give Mr. Zucco credit for his good taste! 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 the sinister ventriloquist Vorelli (Bryant Haliday) in Devil Doll (1964) isn't a mad scientist (he's pretty close), he has a decidedly randy side. 

    Ultimately 'Dr. Frank' (Donald Murphy) gets the prize for the most loathsome lecherous mad scientist for his predatory advances in Frankenstein's Daughter (1958), in which he hits on two different women. Not content to make an unsuccessful play for his colleague's niece, he later attempts a thuggish seduction of her best friend.  

    
[4] The one exception is when she dons traditional Spanish señorita attire and affects a femme fatale persona 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.