Meet Cute

I went into Joe Bob Briggs Presents: Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter with a certain set of expectations - Joe Bob would crack wise about the movie's cheapness, count the number of breasts and decapitations, generally yuck it up. But I was wrong - he practically gave a seminar on B-movies.

JJ Meets FD is William "One-Shot" Beaudine's masterpiece, along with it's double-bill counterpart, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula. He made hundreds of films, starting in 1915 and ending with this one, in 1966. Joe Bob explains his history and the reason for the nickname "One-Shot" - he didn't believe in retakes.

He worked in many genres, but was strongest in westerns, and maybe horror, so this strange combo makes sense. As Joe Bob points out, during the long Jesse James sequences, you need to remind yourself that Frankenstein's daughter is in this somewhere.

Eventually, Jesse James (James Lupton) meets Frankenstein's daughter (Narda Onyx) and Igor (the huge Cal Bolder - Keel on Star Trek), brought together by spicy senorita Estelita Rodriguez - the Cuban Spitfire.

Briggs gives us capsule bios of all these actors and more, pointing out that this was the last film for many - a real resume-killer. It was filmed on Crash Corrigan's ranch, and was indeed the last film made there. So many fun facts to learn about a basically not-very-good movie!

I probably should have listened to the actual soundtrack as well, but I just skipped that and went straight to the commentary. I'm not ashamed. Thank you, Professor Briggs.