''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein'' (U.K. title: ''Teenage Frankenstein'') is a film starring
Whit Bissell
Whitner Nutting Bissell (October 25, 1909 – March 5, 1996) was an American character actor.
Early life
Born in New York City, Bissell was the son of surgeon Dr. J. Dougal Bissell and Helen Nutting Bissell. He was educated at the Allen-S ...
,
Phyllis Coates
Phyllis Coates (born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell; January 15, 1927) is an American former actress, with a career spanning over fifty years. She is best known for her portrayal of reporter Lois Lane in the 1951 film ''Superman and the Mole Men'' and ...
and
Gary Conway, released by
American International Pictures
American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing fi ...
(AIP) in November 1957 as a
double feature with ''
Blood of Dracula''. It is the follow-up to AIP's box office hit ''
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
''I Was a Teenage Werewolf'' is a 1957 horror film starring Michael Landon as a troubled teenager, Yvonne Lime and Whit Bissell. It was co-written and produced by cult film producer Herman Cohen and was one of the most successful films release ...
,'' released less than five months earlier. Both films later received a sequel in the
fictional crossover ''
How to Make a Monster,'' released in July 1958. The film stars
Whit Bissell
Whitner Nutting Bissell (October 25, 1909 – March 5, 1996) was an American character actor.
Early life
Born in New York City, Bissell was the son of surgeon Dr. J. Dougal Bissell and Helen Nutting Bissell. He was educated at the Allen-S ...
,
Phyllis Coates
Phyllis Coates (born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell; January 15, 1927) is an American former actress, with a career spanning over fifty years. She is best known for her portrayal of reporter Lois Lane in the 1951 film ''Superman and the Mole Men'' and ...
,
Robert Burton,
Gary Conway and George Lynn.
Plot
Professor Frankenstein, a guest lecturer from England, talks Dr. Karlton into becoming an unwilling accomplice in his secret plan to actually assemble a human being from the parts of different cadavers. After recovering a body from a catastrophic automobile wreck, Professor Frankenstein takes the body to his laboratory/morgue, where he keeps spare parts of human beings in various drawers. The professor also enlists the aid of Margaret, as his secretary, to keep all callers away from the laboratory.
Margaret, becoming suspicious of what is going on, decides to investigate and goes down to the morgue. She is panic-stricken by the monster, who has been activated following the grafting of a new leg and arm. She dares not tell the professor about her discovery and keeps silent for the present.
One night, the monster leaves the laboratory. He peers into a girl's apartment. The girl becomes hysterical and starts screaming; in his attempt to silence her, he kills her in panic and flees. The next morning, the hunt for the murderer is on. Margaret, angry at the professor, tells him that she knows that the monster is responsible for the murder. The professor, taking no chances, has the monster kill her and feeds her remains to his pet alligator. Dr. Karlton, sent out of town, knows nothing about this.
The professor accompanies the monster to a lover's lane, where he kills a teenage boy in order to obtain his face. The boy's face is successfully grafted onto the monster. Professor Frankenstein tells Dr. Karlton of his plans to dismember his creation and ship him in various boxes to England and then return there to put him together again. When they strap the monster down again, he becomes suspicious and tears loose. He throws Professor Frankenstein into the alligator pit while Dr. Karlton runs for help.
When Dr. Karlton arrives with the police, the monster, maddened with fright, backs into the electrical dial board. Contact with his iron wrist bands electrocutes him and he falls to the ground, dead. Karlton tells the police that he will never forget the way the monster's face looked after the accident.
Cast
*
Whit Bissell
Whitner Nutting Bissell (October 25, 1909 – March 5, 1996) was an American character actor.
Early life
Born in New York City, Bissell was the son of surgeon Dr. J. Dougal Bissell and Helen Nutting Bissell. He was educated at the Allen-S ...
as Professor Frankenstein
*
Phyllis Coates
Phyllis Coates (born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell; January 15, 1927) is an American former actress, with a career spanning over fifty years. She is best known for her portrayal of reporter Lois Lane in the 1951 film ''Superman and the Mole Men'' and ...
as Margaret
*
Robert Burton as Dr. Karlton
*
Gary Conway as the teenage Frankenstein monster/Bob
*
George Lynn as Sergeant Burns
*
John Cliff as Sergeant McAfee
* Marshall Bradford as Dr. Randolph
* Claudia Bryar as Arlene's mother
* Angela Blake as beautiful girl
* Russ Whiteman as Dr. Elwood
Production
''
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
''I Was a Teenage Werewolf'' is a 1957 horror film starring Michael Landon as a troubled teenager, Yvonne Lime and Whit Bissell. It was co-written and produced by cult film producer Herman Cohen and was one of the most successful films release ...
'' had been a big success for AIP and a Texas exhibitor requested two new horror movies from the studio if they could be ready by Thanksgiving.
American International Pictures
American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing fi ...
commissioned Herman Cohen to make ''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein'' and ''
Blood of Dracula''. Cohen says the two films were written and put in front of the cameras in only four weeks "so I had to really, really cut down" in terms of production values.
[Weaver, Tom]
"Attack of the Monster Movie Makers: Herman Cohen, How to Make a Teenage Dracula".
''Herman Cohen''. Retrieved: January 13, 2015.
''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein'' was filmed in black-and-white, with the ending in color for a vivid effect. The film was shot at
Ziv Studios. Cohen says that the alligator they hired for the movie had been used to dispose of the bodies of the victims of serial killer
Joe Ball
Joseph Douglas Ball (January 7, 1896 – September 24, 1938) was an American murderer and suspected serial killer, sometimes referred to as the "Alligator Man", the "Butcher of Elmendorf" and the "Bluebeard of South Texas". He is known to have ...
from a small town outside San Antonio.
Reception
Upon its 1958 release, film critic Richard W. Nason, in his review for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', said,
If you discount any immediate connection between the mass media and the temper of the culture, then the film warrants little attention...The automaton, enacted by Gary Conway, is a teenager assemble from the limbs of other teenagers. This is, in one sense, abhorrent. It forces one to acknowledge the impression that such films may aggravate the mass social sickness euphemistically termed 'juvenile delinquency'...In this particular film, there are graphic displays of human dismemberment. Before one such act of surgical perversion, the mad doctor' assistant says 'I have no stomach for it.' That would be a plausible reaction for any adult who had read the day's headlines about teenage crime.
In 2009, film historian and critic
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fi ...
dismissed ''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein'' as "campy junk...Doesn't live up to that title, worth catching only for Bissell's immortal line, 'Answer me! You have a civil tongue in your head! I know – I sewed it in there!'".
In 2018, critic and filmmaker Christopher Stewardson wrote "Flatly directed, statically shot, but with enough pseudo-scientific positing to enjoy, ''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein'' is strangely enjoyable".
''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein'' was released on
VHS videocassette in 1991 by
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
/
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
Home Video under the shortened title ''Teenage Frankenstein'', which was the original theatrical title that was used when the film was released in the U.K. by
Anglo-Amalgamated
Anglo-Amalgamated Productions was a British film production company, run by Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy, which operated from 1945 until roughly 1971 (after which it was absorbed into EMI Films). Low-budget and second features, often produced at M ...
.
Copyright
As of 2015, all rights to the motion picture ''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein'' and its derivatives were the property of
Susan Hart, the widow of producer
James H. Nicholson.
See also
*
List of American films of 1957
A list of American films released in 1957. ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
A-B
C-H
I-N
O-Q
R-T
U-Z
See also
* 1957 in the United States
References
External links
1957 filmsat the Interne ...
*
List of films featuring Frankenstein's monster
There is a body of films that feature Frankenstein's monster, first created by Mary Shelley in her 1818 novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''.
List of films (chronological)
See also
* ''Frankenstein'' in popular culture
* ''Fran ...
* ''
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific exp ...
'', 1818 novel by
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
* Maltin, Leonard. ''Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2009''. New York: New American Library, 2009 (originally published as ''TV Movies'', then ''Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide''), first edition 1969, published annually since 1988 .
External links
''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein''at
TCMDB
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of A ...
*
*
*
I Was a Teenage Frankensteina
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1957 films
1957 horror films
1950s teen films
1950s science fiction horror films
American teen horror films
American International Pictures films
American black-and-white films
Films directed by Herbert L. Strock
Frankenstein films
Films scored by Paul Dunlap
1950s English-language films
1950s American films