LADY FRANKENSTEIN (1972; d. Mel Welles, w. Eduardo di Lorenzo)

Begins w/ resurrectionists (unconscious dredging up material for dream-weaver Frankenstein to assemble) in grave from which will come life, ends w/ lovemaking couple climaxing in death: eros + thanatos confused, confounded + conflated, as reflected in title (Lady life, attraction; F death, danger) + monster's own damaged hypothalamus, seat of both passion + anger.

2 men, Drs F + Charles Marshall (latter w/ bad leg: story to follow Oedipal – "Swell-foot" – scenario), create being w/ damaged brain (result of unnatural – "homosexual" – generation), which F refers to as "my life" (inert hodgepodge of spare parts: dir observing film itself, both w/ exaggerated + confused attitudes twd sex + violence) + whose vivification coincides w/ daughter Tania’s return from university (up from unconscious, she life force – mother, in unexplained absence of same – similarly turned to unnatural pursuits); crosscutting from lab to her (connecting) boudoir relation again of thanatos + eros, editing "stitching together" locations awa signification + suggesting lab action (where hypothetical – psychic; fantasy – situations "experimented w/" + worked out) as her dream, of self-(re)generating masculine pwr w/i w/o mother to instill img of feminine agency.

Monster’s face burned in process (i.d. distorted in unnatural [dysfunctional] creation), immediately turns on "father" (film’s loss of consciousness + Dr F’s self-destruction at hands of own corrupted worldview) in death-dealing embrace (eros/thanatos) shortly before Tania + admiring Chas hug (oedipal coup: eliminating not-the-father while uniting w/ not-the-mother; relation, again, of death + love in 2 embraces); monster’s escape dissemination into community of patriarch’s maladjustment (Oedi plague in land) + damage rendered interior polis by complex – literally: patchwork creation – at large, film’s nudity kicking in at this point release of libido + relaxation of repressions leading to shy (à la strangely passive direction, actor Welles getting telling performances but lackluster visuals), middle-aged Chas marrying young, voluptuous T: his fantasy, also, "he" – in another, idealized body – last one left alive by film’s end.

Murders mainly lovers + objects of Tania’s displeasure; monster agent of her unconscious, the vengeful (due to repression), disfigured (ugly in eyes of society) masculine in her unleashed, she soon taking charge of both Chas + estate; same time, knowing Police Captain Paul Harris (counter-mechanism to hedonistic monster: conscience/-ousness) comes to fore to investigate murders (personal toll of complex), suspects including graverobber Lynch, whose eclectic (à la monster) room he characterizes as appointed "like an insane asylum" (the unconscious, whose "every inch" similarly "used"/populated), inquiry often yielding nothing material (like film, good at intuiting reasons/connections [knows T+C up to something] but not at "making case" [has no evidence]).

Tania conspires to create own being (w/o mother to complete primal scene [child’s recognition of erotic life of mom + dad], as maladjusted as father) by putting sleight-of-build Chas’s brain in stable"boy" Tommy’s gentle-giant body (he associated w/ sheep: desire to reconcile innocence w/ knowledge/"corruption" [death]) ostensibly to kill 1st creature (resolve "complex," her ambition "simpler" – to transplant brain rather’n fabricate whole: to transfer father-img into new love object); seduces him so hubby can suffocate him w/ pillow (her orgasm on his murder again sex/death), she later chloroforming Chas: both stifling/repressive agents (Tania’s spite for Lynch’s unapologetic animality), Chas stifling own physicality (bad leg atrophied relation to body) + Tania (as film, which takes its name from her), apparently, own intellect, new-Tommy to be marriage of both.

Tom's murder precipitates sister Julia’s arrival next day (elimination of male body yields emergence of female aspect – Soul), she teaming w/ Cptn Harris (w/ romantic implications: resolving oedipal dilemma [Chas marrying "father" Frank’s "woman"] leads to transcending unmediated id [death of body-w/o-mind Tom], allowing for final stage of development, where body + mind united, "bad" characters acting out psychological drama for "good"); after monsters battle it out (1st one returning to castle/mind on similar thunderstorm-creation of 2nd the mind re-collecting its own projection), J+H arrive to find Tom/Chas mating w/ Tania (unification of T+"T"/self + not-self) then strangling her at "climax" (hers + eponymous film’s), finally eliminating/transcending "bad" soul (following Chas’s "bad" mind, by similar method) to leave only unified mind + body (i.e. Soul), primal scene denied Tania provided for young lovers, correcting original cosmic lack (real "Lady F" of title dr/father’s absent wife).

Wonder what's missing in 14m cut from original Euro print for New World’s American release.