Franky In Space

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACEMONSTER-1965-Another “classic” bad movie, most of it filmed on Long Island in New York. 

U.S. space ships are observed then destroyed by some aliens: Princess Marcuzan (Marilyn Hanold) and pasty-faced Dr. Hadir (Lou Cutell; as of this writing still an active TV actor). NASA and the army team up to send a man to Mars but instead of using a real astronaut they send Col. Frank Saunders (Robert Reilly), a kind of “synthetic man” made up it seems of human body parts (just like...well you know...). The aliens destroy his ship but he ejects to safety...sort of. 

The aliens land on Earth and one of the crew finds Frank and blasts him. He doesn't die but one side of his face becomes horribly burned. It turns out that the aliens' home planet (never named) had an atomic war (“They lucky ones are dead”) and radioactivity has made the place uninhabitable. They also need “breeding stock” ( i.e.: women) to repopulate. Frank wanders around San Juan and kills a guy. The scientist in charge of the project, Dr. Steele (James Karen), his assistant Karen (Nancy Marshall) and army general Bowers (David Kerman) fly down just as the aliens begin kidnapping women in Puerto Rico (there are scenes actually filmed there!). The princess checks out their first captured “breeder” while Steele and Karen take a motorcycle ride around town. They find Frank in a cave and Steele tries to repair him while Karen goes for help. Unfortunately at that very moment the aliens invade and at a swinging pool party all the women there are taken captive and Karen is kidnapped as well. She's the only one who doesn't go quietly. All the rest of the captured females seem to be quite docile and unperturbed by the fact that they are in a UFO being watched over by its strange looking inhabitants who are treating them as livestock! 

Frank is taken prisoner later on but Karen gets him to save her and the others while he's forced to fight a very dumb looking monster to justify the title. Unbilled Bruce Glover appears as another alien. 

The alien make-up is really bad and lots of stock footage is used to pad out this strange movie. Star Marilyn Hanold (from Jamaica, NY) was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for June 1959. A few years before FMTS she had appeared in another “notorious” horror film THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE. She didn't do much after this except marry a Texas oil tycoon and quit show biz. 

Well known character actor James Karen was also in the experimental Buster Keaton FILM (written by Samuel Beckett) the same year. This was director Robert Gaffney's only effort. He was later the director of photography on SUPERFLY TNT and may have made some uncredited photographic contributions to 2OO1: A SPACE ODYSSEY...

Thanks for reading!