Francesca and the Monster's Mate (Phyllis Diller) go at it tooth and claw.

As Halloween rolls round again and folks dig out their old monster movies, it's worth looking at Mad Monster Party (or as the title card puts it, Mad Monster Party?), that oddball 1960s feature from Rankin/Bass, just reissued on DVD this month by Lionsgate. Stop-motion, the process of animating figures or objects frame by frame to create movement, has long fascinated this humble animation aficianado. It's unquestionably the most painstaking form of narrative animation but also often the most stylized. Disney was famously concerned with the "illusion of life" and too often computer animated features have strived for a false "realism" (made particularly unsettling in motion-capture films).

DVD cover art - Lionsgate

With a few exceptions, however (the use of stop-motion effects in live-action films, the forthcoming Fantastic Mr. Fox), many stop-motion projects openly embrace and display their  roots, either as flexible clay blobs like Gumby or little puppet-like figures, an almost literal manifestation of the "toys come to life" concept.  Outside of George Pal's classic Puppetoon theatrical shorts, the most toylike creations came from Rankin/Bass. With their "Animagic" stop-motion process (and occasional use of cel animation for variety), Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass dominated the TV special market for decades, producing Christmas perennials such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, as well as specials for Easter (Here Comes Peter Cottontail), Thanksgiving (The Mouse on the Mayflower) and once even New Year's (Rudolph's Shiny New Year). Their major omission, it seemed, was Halloween, but they made up for it with their off-beat feature film Mad Monster Party?   

The film was finished around 1967 but doesn't seem to have been released theatrically until 1969. It followed in the wake of The Addams Family, The Munsters, and horror movies as cheesy late late show fodder. Monsters were now cute, funny, something for the kids, compared to the real fears of the Cold War and the more exciting possibilities in the space race (movie monsters were more likely to be extraterrestrial Things and Blobs than vampires and ghosts). Plot? The movie's stronger on humor, style, and voices than plot, but it's basically a variant on the "monster rally" movies of Universal Studios, matching up their best known bogeymen, from Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943) through , appropriately, the comedic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. While the latter played straight  with the monsters, though, here we get broad lampoons, none of whom could scare a flea. The bash could almost have been called MAD Monster Party, since famed MAD Magazine cartoonist Jack Davis designed the creepy crawlies (especially apparent in the Frankenstein Monster and Mr. Hyde) while MAD's editor Harvey Kurtzman co-wrote the script.  Here, the only one played straight (for the most part) is the Baron/Doctor von Frankenstein (aka "Uncle Boris"), who bears the voice and likeness of horror legend Boris Karloff. The Baron, in a fairly serious prologue, has mastered a formula for destroying any and all matter instantaneously without a trace (preying on the real atomic age fears of nuclear destruction, as mushroom clouds appear).  Boris cackles with wicked delight and invites all of the monsters to a party, to announce both his achievement and his retirement. Attendees (all listed as stars in the opening credits) include most of the Universal Monsters (some referred to more obliquely for legal reasons and all depicted quite differently): Dracula, the Werewolf (looking more like a lupine gypsy than Lon Chaney Jr.), the Mummy (a role originated by Karloff), and the Creature (from the Black Lagoon, though not specified), plus the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Other guests have celebrity impression voices, courtesy of versatile New York vocal talent Allen Swift, who voiced every male character outside of Karloff. Thus the Invisible Man has a Sydney Greenstreet chortle, and when Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde, he recalls Robert Newton in Treasure Island. 

Yetch yetches after Francesca.

Outside of a hammy Dracula (sounding more like a sarcastic Hans Conried than Bela Lugosi), the male monsters are easily overshadowed by two females; the first is the Baron's busty, red-haired secretary Francesca (voiced in sultry tones by singer/actress Gale Garnett), who covets the antimatter discovery and displays more pulchritude than one would expect in an alleged "kiddie" film.  Then there's the Monster's Mate, a warped re-imagining of the Bride of Frankenstein as... Phyllis Diller, in voice and looks. Her limbs held together by copper joint fasteners (no stitching), she insults the Monster (who she calls "Fang," Diller's stand-up name for her husband), speaks in a drawn-out fashion which ironically is more eerie than funny, and laughs her trademark screech. Phew! What's left of the plot centers on the Baron's chosen successor and only living relative, Felix Flanken, a nebbishy, highly allergic pharmicist (voiced by Swift again, in Jimmy Stewart tones). Francesca, Dracula, and the Monster's Mate, individually or in various pairings, all want the Baron's secrets and plot against an oblivious Felix, with crosses and double-crosses leading to a surprise guest monster (billed in the opening only as "It") and an ending which is actually somewhat disturbing on several levels.

All of this is really just an excuse for hijinks, however, as the monsters wisecrack, engage in slapstick, dance to the rock and roll tune "Do the Mummy," get riotously drunk, and suffer hang-overs. Oddball highlights include Yetch, the Peter Lorre look and sound-alike (Swift once more, since Lorre was dead) who lusts after Francesca and whose head is used as a bowling ball; a wild catfight (!) between Francesca and the Mate, complete with clawing, feline sound effects, and rent clothing, leaving only their underwear (don't worry, mom, it's just 1900s-style petticoats); a skeleton band in Beatles' wigs; and the stop-motion Karloff plucking out a jaunty tune to exhort his nervous nephew. The song is an upbeat song of positive encouragement which would have been right at home in Rudolph, but here, it's perversely played by Boris on a skull banjo while nephew Felix is menaced by  a band of rats, imps, snakes, and aliens. Finally, there's the atmospheric opening titles, punctuated by visual sound affects (think the POW of TV's Batman), introducing the ghoulish guests as they receive their invitations, and featuring the jazzy title song, belted out lustily by Ethel Ennis.

So, is the film art? Hardly, though some of the effects are actually fairly impressive (the Invisible Man, easily rendered in drawn or computer animation, was here accomplished through a vague and undisclosed process, likely involving very near-transparent wires, to suspend and animate a fez, sunglasses, and smoking jacket). Is it scary? No, but the cold-war themes of scientific destruction and greed are still relevant and the ending is actually almost more chilling than comedic. Is it colorful? Unquestionably, and the movie deserves it's status as a minor cult classic, which the DVD restores from obscurity in full color and with some decent "making of" extras (interviewing the likes of Rankin, Swift, and composer Maury Laws). If one's still wary to accept an invite to this party, here's the original trailer: