I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957)

... aka: Des filles pour Frankenstein (Girls for Frankenstein)

... aka: El hijo de Frankenstein (The Son of Frankenstein)

... aka: La strage di Frankenstein (The Massacre of Frankenstein)

... aka: Teenage Frankenstein

Directed by:

Herbert L. Strock

Producer Herman Cohen had a big hit on his hands with I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF (1957) in the summer of 1957, which reputedly made 2 million on a budget of just 82,000 dollars. He retained much of the same team and then immediately went into production on this follow-up, which he also co-wrote with frequent collaborator Aben Kandel. So just how rushed was the production? Well, it began shooting in October 1957 and was in theaters just in time for Thanksgiving, a mere five months after Werewolf debuted. If that wasn't impressive enough, the same folks decided to tackle vampires while they were at it and made Blood of Dracula around the same time, which focused on a teenage female bloodsucker. The three films then got mixed and matched as double features over the next few years. It was all about catering directly to the until-then-ignored teen demographic, who were flocking in droves to newly-established drive-in theaters.

Whit Bissell, the same man responsible for transforming Michael Landon into a wolf man, returns in an almost identical role as yet another untrustworthy adult / unscrupulous mad scientist preying on yet another naïve teen. Bissell's character this time out is Professor Frankenstein, an English academic (curiously lacking any kind of British accent) whose lofty career ambitions far outweigh any moral or ethical crises of conscience. Temporarily living in the U. S. and working the college circuit as a guest lecturer, the professor's ranting and raving about finding a way to graft whole human limbs from the dead onto the bodies of the living brings skepticism from his peers. He concludes: "I'll hold to my beliefs and some day, very soon possibly, I'll prove them so conclusively that even cynics like you all over the world will be convinced!" And that he does! As a descendant of the notorious Baron Frankenstein, who'd expect anything less?

Frankenstein manages to coerce / blackmail his supportive colleague and friend, physicist Dr. Karlton (Robert Burton), into helping him to construct an entire human using the body parts stolen from cadavers. But not just any body will do. After all, he's well aware of what happened to his ancestor because he wasn't too particular about where he got his spare limbs from. Nope. This Frankenstein believes in a theory called "selective breeding." After all, "If you breed morons, you beget morons." He only wants the finest of body parts from strong, able-bodied young men or, as he calls them, "the ingredients of youth." A "worm out body inhabited by an overtaxed brain" simply won't suffice. Right as Frankenstein is laying out his master plan, the sound of car brakes and a loud bang are heard coming from outside. There's been a terrible car accident. And the drivers were teenagers. And one of those bodies was thrown from the vehicle. And the body that was thrown from the vehicle happens to belong to a strapping, muscular young man. Whatta coincidence!

Despite a large crowd gathering at the scene, the professor and Karlton somehow manage to scoop the boy's corpse up and carry it back home undetected. Thankfully, Frankenstein's already prepared for such an incident. Down in his basement, he has what he calls his "personal morgue;" a laboratory complete with cold lockers to store bodies, a temperature control that he keeps the place at near-freezing temperatures to help preserve corpses and an alligator pit (!!) to dispose of discarded body parts. But Frankenstein will need plenty of time. After all, the car crash victim has had his head crushed in, his face mangled beyond recognition and both of his hands plus a leg injured beyond repair. Soon after, another "Whatta coincidence!" moment - a plane crash killing star athletes - makes the necessary body parts available. Well, available if one is willing to do a little grave digging and corpse thievery, which our determined doctor Is more than willing to do! A couple of arms from a champion wrestler and a leg from a star football player later and the human jigsaw is complete.

In order to get the peace and quiet needed, the professor has asked a former assistant, lovely university hospital nurse Margaret (Phyllis Coates), to come to stay at his home and act as his secretary while he's working. She's to handle all of his business and personal affairs, keep any people / distractions away and not ask any questions about what he's doing. And when he's through, he plans on taking her back to England with him after his visa expires and marrying her. However, the relationship rapidly deteriorates whenever Margaret, ya know, starts expecting things. He tries to pacify her by taking her to Lovers Lane but she then begins snooping around his off-limits lab, which puts her in danger.

After the "monster" (Gary Conway) is revived, he also starts to cause the professor problems. Though he's obedient at first and patient through his exercise regiments, speech therapy ("Speak! You've got a civil tongue in your head! I know you have because I sewed it back myself!"), vitamin shots and "electrical treatments," he soon tires of being locked away in the basement and desires companionship. There's still one major problem with him: Though he may have the body of an Adonis, he has the face of Joseph Merrick. Frankenstein uses that to his advantage and informs his creation that he'll only fix his face if he remains obedient to him. Still, the monster can't resist venturing out of the lab. He sneaks into town late one night and strangles a screaming blonde bombshell to death after busting through her window.

Showing that he's willing to go to great lengths, including murder at his master's behest, the creature is finally allowed his new face. The professor is even nice enough to take him to Lovers Lane and let him pick out the one he wants. The two stumble upon handsome teenager Bob (Conway again) and his date necking in a car. The creature knocks out the girl and then they kill and decapitate Bob; bringing his head back to the lab for a quickie full-face transplant that works out surprisingly well. His experiment now complete, Professor Frankenstein then plots to return to the UK with his creature... only he plans on first disassembling him for easier transport! As that's going on, a pair of coppers (George Lynn, John Cliff) investigate the murders. The last couple of minutes are in color.

Unimaginatively shot, lifelessly directed and very talky, this mildly lurid, pseudo-camp effort has to default back to its cast to provide most of the entertainment value. Good thing then that at least a few of the stars deliver. Prolific character actor Bissell is given a rare (his only?) top billed lead role and offers up a cold, calculating, arrogant and completely unfeeling / sociopathic Frankenstein. Upon seeing his newly-revived creation cry, instead of offering an sympathetic ear, his first instinct is to exclaim "Even his tear ducts work!" and how he sets up one character's demise is extremely mean-spirited and more than just a little sadistic! While Bissell is given some hokey dialogue, his dry and dead-serious delivery helps make it all work. His version of Frankenstein is also notable as being entirely detestable... There is NOTHING even remotely likable about this asshole!

Conway, in either his first or second film (he was also in Corman's Viking Women and the Sea Serpent the same year), offers up an earnest performance as the creature. Prior to acting, he got by working as a near-nude model in "physique" magazines, which probably functioned mostly as gay porn back then. A year after appearing in this, he married Miss America 1957, Marian McKnight, and the two are still together to this day... over 60 years later. Now there's a love story for ya. Conway would sort-of reprise his role in the same company's HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER (1958) in the same Phillip Scheer make-up.

This played theatrically on an AIP double bill with Blood of Dracula (re-titled Blood is My Heritage in the UK). Strangely, and unlike most other American genre films from this time, this one's never been given a legitimate DVD release and I'm not entirely sure why that is. There's a rumor that the current owner, former actress Susan Hart (widow of AIP co-founder James H. Nicholson), is holding out for more money, but it's hard to tell. The only official U.S. home video release I'm aware of is a 1991 VHS from RCA / Columbia.

★★

How to Make a Monster (1958)

... aka: Der Satan mit den tausend Masken (Satan with a Thousand Masks)

... aka: La batalla de los monstruos (Battle of the Monsters)

Directed by:

Herbert L. Strock

Veteran make-up artist Pete Dumond (Robert H. Harris) has spent decades fine-tuning his craft for American International Studios, whipping out one impressive monster design after another. And, unlike a lot of other people in show business, Pete still enjoys his job since he frequently gets to work with eager, energetic and far less jaded teenagers which in turn helps keeps his enthusiasm up. However, the studio has just been bought out by NBN Associates and they want to make some changes. New studio execs John Nixon (Eddie Marr) and Jeff Clayton (Paul Maxwell) come barging into Pete's workshop letting him know that they'll no longer be needing him or his faithful, slow-witted assistant Rivero (Paul Brinegar). After all, according to them, "Monsters are finished... the horror cycle is over!" Pete retorts that they said the same thing twenty-five years ago before his werewolf creation saved the studio from bankruptcy. Still, the new big brass want to revamp the entire studio's image. Instead of monster movies, they want to focus on upbeat musicals, comedies and flyweight "escapist" films. After Pete finishes up his work on AIP's latest Teenage Frankenstein vs. Teenage Werewolf opus, he's to clear out and find work somewhere else. They offer to give him a whopping week's worth of severance pay for compensation, but Pete basically tells them to stuff it.

The irate make-up man, who feels like he's now in a fight for not only his livelihood but also his life, devises a plan. Since he's skilled with various drugs and chemicals that he's experimented with over the year, he gets to work creating an all-new formula. His "foundation cream" will be infused with this chemical so that it goes directly into the pores of whoever has it applied to them. Just how does it work? Well, it "blocks the nerve synapses" to "paralyze the will" and thus will "have the same effect chemically as a surgical prefrontal lobotomy." Combined with hypnosis, whoever wears the make-up will be passive and obedient to Pete's will. In other words, they'll be perfect instruments for revenge!

Young, hungry and naïve (i.e. dumb) Larry Drake (Gary Clarke), who's been cast as the werewolf in the current film, stops in for his make-up, where Pete plants the seed in his mind that whenever they finish making this monster movie, he'll have an impossible time finding work himself. Larry then allows Pete to apply his concoction to his face. He sends him out to kill John and then return to the workshop, after which he releases him from his hypnotic trance and he remembers nothing. However, later on he doesn't quite feel himself. Pete even uses the cream on himself when a night watchman (Dennis Cross) gets a little too big in the britches and hopes to impress the new owners by helping find John's killer.

Tony Mantell (Gary Conway), a young, hunky and (recurring theme here) none-too-bright young actor who's been cast as Frankenstein, also inadvertently gets in on the action when Pete sends him after the other studio executive. That's three murders in no short time, all corresponding with the studio shake-up. The press have a field day with the murders while the owners try to decide whether or not to shut the studio down for awhile and the investigators on the case, led by Captain Hancock (Morris Ankrum) and detectives Thompson (Walter Reed) and Jones (John Phillips), try to piece all of the clues together. The fact Pete and Rivero have been keeping long hours at the studio automatically puts them on the suspect list and, with Rivero being kind of weak and flaky, Pete starts to fear he'll eventually crack and give them both away.

This has middling scores on both IMDb and Letterboxd, but I quite liked it. Though not without its flaws, I found this not only fun and entertaining but also rather praiseworthy as an influence on self-aware / post modern / meta horror, which became a more popular (and overused) angle much later on. This also offers some very good make-ups from Phillip Scheer (though he's basically recycling most of his designs from earlier films) and a fantastic central performance from Harris, who's able to inject some pathos into his otherwise villainous character to keep him from becoming too one-dimensional. Pete even has a shrine in his home decorated with replicas from such fine creature features as IT CONQUERED THE WORLD (1956) and INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN (1957), there's an amusing plug for the upcoming HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (1959) and it's also a pleasant surprise when the film suddenly switches to color in the last ten minutes.

Most interestingly, this is filled with analytical, surprisingly perceptive and sometimes humorous commentary on the the horror genre, its importance and how it is perceived (and quite often misunderstood) by the public at large. Studio heads look down on the genre, as if their brainless movies (which they insist be filled with "pretty girls" and "gorgeous gals") are any more reputable. Detectives wonder if horror films and Pete's monster creations could provoke violence from any "weirdies" in the audience. The young actors cast in the horror films take the roles for their big break but still fear being typecast. And Pete, crazy as he turns out to be, has all kinds of valid points to make, from monster creations being art like any other form of art (true), that a good actor should be able to emote and / or make an impression even from underneath his / her make-up (also true) and the psychological positives that horror films provide the audience (true yet again).

The cast also includes Malcolm Atterbury as the studio's veteran security guard, Thomas Browne Henry as a nice guy director, Robert Shayne as a pissed off talent agent and "guest star" John Ashley as himself, doing a horrible musical number called "You've Got to Have Ee-Ooo" with some female dancers to show us what kind of garbage the new executives plan on cranking out. Sound effects editor Verna Fields would go on to win a much-deserved Oscar for editing Jaws.

In 1992, Ed Wood's widow Kathy came forward with claims that "presenter" / executive producer Samuel Z. Arkoff stole the entire idea for this film from her husband; a claim that Arkoff denied. Both the story and the screenplay are credited to Herman Cohen (also the producer) and "Kenneth Langtry" (Aben Kandel). Arkoff returned to executive produce a cable TV "remake" in 2001 that bears little actual relation to this original film.

This was double-billed with Roger Corman's Teenage Caveman (1958) during its theatrical run. It has since been given numerous home video releases: MCA / Universal distributed it on VHS, Lions Gate released it on DVD (they paired it with Strock's The Blood of Dracula) and Scream Factory released a Blu-ray in 2020.

★★★