Joe Bob Briggs Presents:
Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter
(Elite Entertainment Region 1 DVD)
(1965)
review by Head Cheeze

I have a soft spot for films that are "so bad they're good", so I'd already had a place in my heart for William Beaudine's mind-numbingly bad western/horror hybrid, Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter. I'd seen the film on late night television before, and it's just one of those movies that makes fun of itself. However, it's always better to have someone around to make fun of a movie with you, and now, thanks to Elite Entertainment, we can all be paired up with the best; Mr. Drive-In himself, Joe Bob Briggs.

Elite made the marketing decision of the year, in my opinion, with it's choice of Joe Bob as the commentator for their Millenium Edition of I Spit on Your Grave. Joe Bob proved not only funny, but more knowledgeable about the film than the film's director. He's a living library of motion picture trivia, and when I had heard that Elite signed Joe Bob to a deal in which he'd be taking on the gig regularly I was absolutely stoked.

Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter is the first of Elite's new "Joe Bob Briggs Presents" series, and I challenge you to find a more sidesplittling ninety minutes anywhere else this year. From the moment you pop the disc in and see Joe Bob on every menu page, and hear his comments to you with every click on the screen, you know who the real star of this DVD is. The film is just the means to an end, although one can choose to watch the film sans commentary, but I doubt you'll get too far.

JJMFD tells the tale of a small Mexican village that becomes abandoned after a pair of mad scientists began experimenting on the locals. It seems that the daughter of Frankenstein (Onyx) has taken to completing her father's work, using the villagers as guinea pigs. Meanwhile, Jesse James (Lupton) and his gang are ambushed during a coach robbery, leading to a near fatal injury of Jesse's pal, Hank. The pair seek help while being pursued by the local marshall, and find refuge at the Frankenstein abode, where Hank sizes up nicely in the mad doctor's plans for world domination.

If it sounds bad it's because it is, but that's precisely the reason Joe Bob is here to guide us through. Briggs' rapid fire delivery alternates between hilarious observation and fascinating trivia about virtually every aspect of Beaudine's film, life, and body of work (the director had made well over 350 films prior to this, his last). It's really great fun to watch and listen as Joe Bob dissects an "injun attack", waxes philosophical about day-for-night shooting (in which filters are used to make day scenes look like night, although here they look like mud!), and the pitfalls of a silent movie director working in the realm of sound. You'll learn as much as you laugh, and that's the beauty of Joe Bob's signature style.

Elite doesn't go all out with this first volume, presenting just the film, a trailer, and, of course, Joe Bob's commentary track. While the commentary is technically an extra, the DVD wouldn't be worth the material it's printed on without it, but that's the idea; Elite wasn't going to have Joe Bob give us a play by play analysis of Citizen Kane.

For a truly enlightening and laugh out loud funny evening of bad cinema, I can think of no one better to present it to us than Joe Bob Briggs. Bring on volume two!!