I finally sat through (barely, while working) William “One Shot” Baudine’s Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1965) (free here or on DVD with Joe Bob Briggs commentary track) on my second attempt. Not as fun as it sounds, with boring subplot about some kind of “heist” or whatever it is when Wild West guys do it.
Hammy acting and way too much — I don’t know the dramaturgical term — “running back and forth”: running to the castle, running away from the castle, running back the castle.
A rare female mad scientist, as opposed to the good “lady scientists” (“Well, what have we here? If I’d known professors could be so pretty…”) in so many 50s sf. (I can only think of two others, in Wasp Woman (1960) — love it! — and one I can’t remember the name of right now, set in a girl’s boarding school.) (UPDATE: thanks to the long time reader who tracked down Blood of Dracula, 1957)
20 Million Miles to Earth (1957). Bratty little Italian kid causes plenty of trouble. You’ll want to slap him. Really crappy lady scientist. But Ray Harryhausen’s special effects are always a treat. This creature has the same from-the-hip-socket “gunslinger” stride as so many of his two-legged creatures, and that little bit of personality that he always managed to somehow convey in stop motion. Colorization is Satan — stick with the original black and white version. Old fashioned fun.
I got this “stop motion creature goes on rampage in postcard city” jones after watching Konga (1961) (thanks, Rick), so on top of 20 Million Miles (Sicily), I recorded It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955) (San Francisco) off TCM. More Harryhausen, but zero personality: giant octopus except for budgetary reasons it only had six arms. Non-crappy female scientist. Really dumb screenplay would have benefited from a complete rewrite; takes too long to get started but fun once it does.
