discovering that the rights to the Lady Dracula script were actually held by actor Brad Harris, Welles wrote a new screenplay with his friend, television writer Edward di Lorenzo, which was completed in three weeks; Welles also desired to incorporate feminist themes into the narrative. Film historian Roberto Curti has suggested that their script may have been inspired by "For the Love of Frankenstein", a story by Bill Warren and Jack Sparling that had appeared in the fourth issue of the comic book Vampirella. Welles was assisted by fellow expatriate producer Dick Randall in assembling the remainder of the cast, which included Joseph Cotten and Mickey Hargitay. $90,000 of Lady Frankensteins budget was originally intended to be provided through a letter of credit given to Welles by producer Skip Steloff, which was denied by the Italian banks shortly prior to the start of production. The money needed to make the film was eventually secured by Welles' old colleague Roger Corman; as part of this arrangement, Corman's studio New World Pictures gained the film's American distribution rights. According to Randall, the film's low budget, estimated to be less than $200,000, resulted in Cotten's schedule being shortened to two weeks and his part being rewritten so that his character's death would take place earlier in the film. Principal photography began on March 1, 1971, with most interiors being shot at De Paolis Studios in Rome, while several castle scenes were filmed at Castello Piccolomini. Aureliano Luppi was credited as the film's director on the Italian Public Cinematographic Register. Reflecting on the shoot, Neri stated that "For a number of reasons — not sentimental ones, anyway — I used to go around with [Welles], his wife and children. Frankly, I don't think of him as a great director; on that film was a talented cameraman, Riccardo Pallottini, who did everything by himself — those nice lightings, for instance... he used to place the camera, then he waited for the director; he also solved technical problems and so forth". Release Lady Frankenstein was distributed theatrically in Italy by Alexia on 22 October 1971. It grossed a total of 139,683,000 Italian lire domestically, a performance Curti declared "mediocre". It was released in the United States in March 1972 by New World Pictures in a version that was ten minutes shorter than the Italian prints, with cuts that removed expository scenes but left its violence and