Blackenstein (1973) American International/Horror RT: 87 minutes Rated R (language, graphic violence, nudity, sexual content) Director: William A. Levey Screenplay: Frank R. Salerti Music: Cardella Di Milo and Lou Frohman Cinematography: Robert Caramico Release date: August 3, 1973 (US) Cast: John Hart, Ivory Stone, Joe De Sue, Roosevelt Jackson, Andrea King, Nick Bolin, Yvonne Robinson, Bob Brophy. Box Office: $2M (US)
Rating: *
American International head Samuel Z. Arkoff had big plans for Blackenstein (aka Black Frankenstein), his studio’s hundredth film. He’s quoted as saying, “We plan to devote our full resources to making this hundredth picture particularly outstanding.” Spoken like a true master of schlock. It’s also a total crock.
As you can probably surmise from the title, it’s the blaxploitation version of Frankenstein. Following on the heels of the previous year’s Blacula, the producers had high hopes for Blackenstein. They originally planned on making two sequels (The Fall of the House of Blackenstein and Blackenstein III), but abandoned those plans after getting a gander at the finished product. Exploitation flick or not, it’s a bad movie. It’s cheap-looking, poorly acted, badly written and far too underlit to tell what was going on most of the time.
I tend to give B-movies like Blackenstein a lot of leeway. I try to accept them on their own meager terms. There’s not enough leeway in the world to accept Blackenstein on any terms. It may have sounded like a great idea on paper, but it sure doesn’t play that way on celluloid. Ordinarily, I would express disbelief that a movie this bad even got released, but since we’re talking about a low budget exploitation flick from a studio that specialized in low budget exploitation flicks, it’s a moot point. Blackenstein is so bad that it doesn’t even reach the level of unintentional comedy. It takes itself far too seriously for that. That’s what really kills it for me. If I can’t laugh at a bad movie, what’s the point of even watching it?
The torment begins with young Dr. Winifred Walker (Stone) visiting her former teacher, Dr. Stein (Hart) and asking him to help her fiancee Eddie (De Sue) who lost all four limbs after stepping on a land mine in Vietnam. A recent Nobel Prize winner for his work in “solving the DNA genetic code”, Stein believes he can help Eddie. He has him brought from the veteran’s hospital (where he gets verbally abused by a jealous orderly) to his home/laboratory. He goes to work on his new patient with the help of his assistant Malcomb (Jackson) who has a crush on Walker. Stein successfully replaces Eddie’s arms using his trademark DNA solution, but something goes very wrong with the leg surgeries after Malcomb tampers with the solution as revenge for Walker rejecting him as a lover. Whatever he does to the solution causes Eddie to become a deformed, homicidal monster. He escapes from Stein’s laboratory on several occasions, taking lives in a most gruesome manner. His first victim, of course, is the orderly who mistreated him at the hospital. Okay, I don’t think Mary Shelley had anything like this in mind when she penned her infamous novel in 1818. I’ll bet she’s till spinning in her grave over this one.
If the filmmakers wanted audiences to take Blackenstein as seriously as they appear to, they failed miserably. Are they trying to make a serious statement about the plight of returning Vietnam vets? Do they honestly believe that audiences are gullible enough to accept such hokum in that way? Blackenstein fails also as a horror movie for one simple reason, it’s NOT scary! Not even a little bit. What the director sees as suspense will be interpreted as boredom by everybody else.
His name is William A. Levey and he would go on to direct such movies as Slumber Party ’57 (1976), The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977) and Skatetown U.S.A. (1979). Any of these titles can be seen as a marked improvement over his debut film. He gets Blackenstein ALL wrong! The pacing is sluggish, the makeup effects are hokey and the dialogue is atrocious. The only notable thing about this movie is that the laboratory set includes items used in the original Frankenstein (1931). Too bad Levey didn’t borrow more from it, like a decent script or good actors. I’m not familiar with a single name in the cast and it looks like the only actor of note is Hart who played the Lone Ranger in 54 episodes of the old TV series (1950-53).
I know full well not to expect too much when it comes to exploitation movies, but I at least expect them to be watchable. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so, at least from some filmmakers. The only purpose that Blackenstein serves is making other blaxploitation flicks look better by comparison. Hell, it makes almost ANY movie look better by comparison. Even the works of Edward D. Wood Jr. look masterful compared to this dreck. And yes, I have seen Glen or Glenda.
