For the movies, Gaston Leroux’s opera-dwelling phantom has been a literary gift that keeps on giving. Witness Brian De Palma’s cult classic Phantom of the Paradise, the ’80s straight-to-VHS slasher Phantom of the Mall and the somewhat obscure The Phantom of Hollywood, a 1974 CBS movie of the week.

Without me telling you, you can guess its basic story points: The fictional Worldwide Studios has plans to demolish its backlot, which doesn’t sit well with the masked, mace-wielding figure who lives among its sets and subterranean tunnels. Once he gets wind of it, he leaves notes and makes calls to studio execs (Rat Packer Peter Lawford among them) that amount to outright threats of death: “To destroy the backlot is to destroy yourself!”

They ignore him; fatal “accidents” happen; the Phantom kidnaps a lovely woman (Skye Aubrey, The Carey Treatment); and things don’t go as smoothly as he planned.

Given our overexposure to Leroux’s plot, it’s not at all taxing to guess the identity of the Phantom. This is no detraction, however; its very familiarity is comforting and welcome. The pleasures of this Phantom, as with every twist-’em-up version, is seeing how the filmmakers will modernize each element of the original Opera. So what if this one is a little insidery and self-congratulatory? It does not fail to entertain, and does so efficiently, in fewer than 75 minutes.

It’s an added treat for old-school film buffs, as viewers not only see clips from celebrated movies like The Wizard of Oz, but also get good glimpses of the MGM backlot, which ironically, was being destroyed at the time. That might be the only reason this nifty telefilm exists. Regardless, I’m glad it does. —Rod Lott

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Featuring day for night, bad dubbing, sideburns, camera zooming, gratuitous nudity and other hallmarks of ’70s cinema, Lady Frankenstein is an ultra-schlocky take on the classic Mary Shelley narrative. The plot centers on Tania Frankenstein (Rosalba Neri, credited as Sara Bey), who returns home from medical school with the hopes of assisting her father Baron Frankenstein (veteran actor Joseph Cotten of Citizen Kane and The Third Man fame) in his unorthodox experiments with human reanimation.

The Baron tries to keep her out of the way, however, not wanting her to face any backlash should their grisly, “unholy” work ever get out. He continues working on his “creature” with his assistant, Dr. Marshall (Paul Muller), acquiring a recently hanged killer’s corpse from a local sleazy grave robber (Herbert Fux) and his cronies. 

On a stormy night, Frankenstein successfully reanimates his creature, despite Marshall warning him not to, given that the hanged killer’s brain had been damaged. This results in the monster — a gargantuan specimen with a bulbous bald head — to immediately rampage, killing Baron Frankenstein and escaping to the countryside, where unsuspecting villagers (several of them amorous couples) fall victim to its indiscriminate wrath.

Tania seems unconcerned by all of this, however, instead convincing Marshall — apparently in love with Tania — to kill a mentally handicapped stud named Thomas (Marino Masé, as Peter Whiteman) and allow her to transplant Marshall’s superior brain into Thomas’ younger, fitter body. Meanwhile, local cop Captain Harris (Mickey Hargitay, Mariska’s dad) suspects the Frankensteins have been up to no good, a sentiment shared by the townsfolk for no clear reason other than to include the requisite angry mob equipped with torches and pitchforks at the film’s climax. Without giving too much away, this we get in spades. 

To say this is an uneven film is an understatement, but its rockily paved roads still offer a thrilling, if altogether bumpy ride. It has the spirit of a gothic Hammer film — not as good as any of that studio’s Frankenstein entries, mind you, but just perverse and at times unintentionally goofy enough to hold interest. Sometimes, perversity and goofiness go hand in hand, perhaps none more so than in the scene where Marshall smothers Thomas with a pillow while he makes love to Tania, sending the lady into a fit of ecstasy. This sexual rapture during murder fits in with the film’s overall assertion that the Frankensteins are preternaturally evil.

Similarly, the Baron’s obsession with reanimating the dead seems rooted in a desire to achieve godlike status among his fellow mortals, not so much for any scientific aims. As such, the monster created by Frankenstein is just that: a marauding hulk imbued with “superhuman strength induced by lightning,” as Marshall puts it. If you’re looking for a nuanced depiction of the Creation, keep looking, because you won’t get it here. If you don’t care about all that and just want to see a brute kill a bunch of people, this is the movie for you. 

With its short runtime and emphasis on exploitation, Lady Frankenstein, despite its flaws, is a fun late-night flick sure to delight all but the most devout Shelley purists. —Christopher Shultz

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