Blackenstein

Eddie (Joe De Sue) has been wounded in Vietnam by a grenade and now has no arms or legs. His fiancee Winifred (Ivory Stone), a doctor, shows up in L.A. at the home of her former teacher, Dr. Stein (John Hart). Dr. Stein, of course, who does crazy medical experiments. She is hoping he can help Eddie, who coincidentally is also coming to L.A. Unfortunately, Dr. Stein’s creepy assistant, Malcolm (Roosevelt Jackson), falls in love with Winifred and sabotages Eddie’s treatment so that Eddie becomes Blackenstein. Ta da!

You know, I can usually pull some redeeming quality out of my ass when it comes to thinking about and writing about crazy ass old B movies, but not this time. There is no reason to recommend Blackenstein except as an exercise in riffing. Fortunately, there is plenty of fodder for those so inclined. I don’t think I’ve ever seen acting this bad. The guy playing Eddie/Blackenstein is not capable of even looking like he’s having an emotion or a thought. I didn’t know you could be a horrible actor when you weren’t even supposed to be doing anything but lying on a bed listening to someone else talk!

My husband described Dr. Stein’s lab as looking like it was dressed using props from Spencer’s Gifts, because of all the plasma balls; he also called the Winifred/Malcolm unrequited love fiasco “the courtship of Eddie’s doctor,” which made me laugh. There is also a patient Dr. Stein is working on who, due to some vaguely pseudoscientific explanation of a mixup with RNA and DNA, has a fucking tiger striped leg!

One other weird thing is that there is lots of faux-artistic camera work, like a camera circling a long dining table during a conversation, or a person shot through the crook in the arm of a statue, then blurred so the statue is in focus. Which is all interesting, of course, but then you see the cameraman’s sleeve or something. Maybe the DP was a pretentious film student? There’s also a great bluesy song which seems to be called “I Can’t Find No One to Love Me,” but I can’t find any mention of it online. It might be sung by Cardella De Milo, who performs “You Should Be Thankful” later in the film. She’s easily the best part of the whole movie.

The only reason I didn’t turn off the movie, besides that I owed myself an article tonight, is this. There is a hospital orderly near the beginning who is looking in on Eddie and who gives one of the most ridiculous speeches in movie history. He taunts Eddie because he doesn’t want to give the armless, legless guy any ice cream or water, and then gives a long, incoherent explanation about his feelings upon having been rejected from military service due to a heart murmur. So I was waiting to see if, when Eddie becomes Blackenstein, the orderly will be horribly killed. By the time that happened, by an arm getting torn off after a fight that takes place in shadow, I had already watched half the movie, so I went ahead and finished it. I got to see the worst blond wig on Earth, a pretty good corny joke about a talking dog, Blackenstein ripping out a topless woman’s guts, and a hilarious lover’s lane argument. But is Blackenstein worth the trash film lover’s time? All I can say is, if you watch this, don’t blame me.