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| Joe Dallesandro and Dalila Di Lazzaro in Flesh for Frankenstein |
Cast: Joe Dallesandro, Monique van Vooren, Udo Kier, Arno Jürging, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Srdjan Zelenovic, Nicoletta Elmi, Marco Liofredi, Liù Bosisio. Screenplay: Paul Morrissey. Cinematography: Luigi Kuveiller. Production design: Enrico Job. Film editing: Jed Johnson, Franco Silvi. Music: Claudio Gizzi.
Silly, kinky, campy, bloody, sometimes scary, often very funny, and altogether ridiculous, Flesh for Frankenstein is also known as Andy Warhol's Frankenstein. Warhol's contribution to the film was his name and very little else, except for his association with director Paul Morrissey and star Joe Dallesandro. The idea for the film has been traced back to Roman Polanski, who suggested to Morrissey that he make a Frankenstein movie in 3-D. The backing for the proposal came from producer Carlo Ponti, with the result that the facilities at Cinecittà in Rome and Italian film technicians like cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller, production designer Enrico Job, composer Claudio Gizzi, and special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi became available. The result looks better than it has any right to. It features Udo Kier in one of his first journeys over the top, playing the mad scientist baron, who is trying to breed a new master race. He has his female creature (Dalila Di Lazzaro) and the torso of the male in storage as the film begins, and is searching for a Serbian peasant with the right nose, or as he calls it, nasum -- the baron likes to drop in a little Latin to impress his assistant, Otto (Arno Jürging). He finds it on Sacha (Srdjan Zelenovic, an otherwise unknown actor), who has the misfortune to go with his friend Nicholas (Dallesandro) to a brothel. On their way home afterward, they're waylaid by the baron and Otto; Nicholas is knocked out and Sacha is beheaded. Unfortunately, Sacha wants to be a monk, possibly because, as we see, he's more attracted to Nicholas than to the women in the brothel. So despite having his head sewn to the male creature's torso, he's a failure when the baron tries to breed him with the female. Meanwhile, Nicholas has been hired as a servant by the baroness (Monique van Vooren), who wants him to serve at table but mostly to have sex with her. The baron, who is also her brother, has lost interest in sex some time after the birth of their two children. Nicholas recognizes Sacha when the baron presents his creatures at dinner, so with the help of the children, who have been spying on everything in the castle, he finds his way to the laboratory where everybody in the household eventually winds up in a scene that has more corpses than the last act of Hamlet. Let it be said about Flesh for Frankenstein that it's almost never boring.
