I Was a Teenage Werewolf

In between Lon Chaney Jr.(40's) and Oliver Reed (60's), I give Michael Landon a slight edge over Steven Ritch (The Werewolf 1956) as favorite werewolf of the 50's. The high school jacket and occasional drool give this werewolf a different slant. I notice this was directed by Gene Fowler who did I Married A Monster From Outer Space (another great title)in which, like this movie, the monster gets attacked by a dog. I still like the fight, woods scene, and gymnasium scene. A previous reviewer mentioned that Elvis was dating Yvonne Lime around this time and visited the set. This WOULD have been a great Elvis vehicle. 'He rocks He sings He Howls!'. Ah what could have been. Also another reviewer mentions that Michael Landon's character was too self-assured and that an unassured and unconfident teenager misled by the good doctor in hope of the teenager being more confident and popular would have been better. I agree, that would have been more plausible than Whit Bissell's ridiculous reasons and maybe more involving to the viewer. Still, I like Michael's performance (I'll take this over a Highway To Heaven rerun)and regard this as the best AIP horror picture(For whatever that's worth). The movie doesn't drag too much, though,I don't think ** out of *****

The old monsters all got done over with "atom age" audiences (read: teenagers) and new legends replaced the old. In this one a werewolf is created not by the force of the full moon but purely via psychology. Dr. Brandon (the ever popular Whit Bissel) wants to save mankind from itself by showing that inside every human mind is a beast capable of greater destruction than an atom bomb (huh?). Using hypnosis and a drug called "Scopalomine" he regresses a troubled teen (Michael Landon, in a role he actually had fond memories of) to a past, primordial life as a . ..werewolf? Is this supposed to imply that the human race started out as shapeshifting werewolves millions of years ago? Oh well, it's an American International Picture so expects lots of thrills and almost no logic.

Actually this is a fun film to watch even all these decades later. Kenny Miller, who does the requisite musical number, recalled in a 1990's interview that when the scene was shot he had to sing a capella and the music was added later. When he finally saw the finished film he was shocked to hear the music a full 2 beats BEHIND his singing!

Has anyone else noticed that in most of the AIP teenage monster movies there is always one character named "Rivers" and one girl named "Arlene"? Was Sam Arkoff or Jim Nicholson recalling their own teen years and perhaps a girl he had loved and lost? We may never know.

A group of us guys were discussing the scariest films we'd seen as kids. I was 10 in 1957 when I saw this film while spending a week on Catalina Island. The theater was at the landmark "Casino" which was about a half mile walk from the small port village of Avalon. I was heavily absorbed in war, sci-fi, and western action films, with a special appreciation for stunts and special effects but unfamiliar with the horror genre in general and werewolf lore in particular. I was also the runt tagging along with a trio of cool eleven year old friends. It could've been a scene out of "Stand By Me". Four smart-ass kids walking at night down a dirt road to see "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" for my first and only time.

As an aspiring artist, I remember being fascinated by the opening titles where a make-up artist sketched the monster's face but when the actual transformation took place in the film it freaked me out, to say the least. Maybe it was the collective scream of a hundred other kids, but I covered my eyes until brave enough to slowly glimpse the monster. The scenes shot in Griffith Park looked too much like the dark, tree lined path we had walked to the theater. That half mile walk back to town was the longest, creepiest walk of my childhood.

A few months later I saw "A Man of a Thousand Faces" and became completely fascinated by the art of make-up and dove into everything I could find on Lon Chaney Sr. Later I finally saw Chaney Jr. in "The Wolf Man". By then I was too cool to be scared but still reading anything I could find on werewolf and vampire lore and probably first in line to see "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein".

Even the makers of this picture must have been surprised at the success of this horror camp film. Landon is the troubled teen, Bissel the mad doctor that transforms him into canine terror. Later in his career, Landon admittedly blushed at the mention of the picture, but this one did kick off the start of the "I Was a Teenage Whatever" craze. This one moves along quite well and is still watchable by today's standards.

Tony Rivers is a teenager who has a real problem with anger. He's always ready for a fight and explodes at even the slightest provocation. A sequence of unfortunate events lead him to seek help with a psychotherapist, who turns out to be a mad scientist obsessed with the possibilities of reverting man to his animal state. After a few sessions which seem to be helping, brutal animal-like killings begin to occur in the town and Tony fears that he has become ... a werewolf! Although it was made for an extremely low budget by a brand-new production company called American International Pictures, this movie became very successful very quickly. Whether or not somebody actually sat down and figured out that teenagers should be the target audience for movie theatres now that the older folk stayed at home to watch TV is uncertain, but it was definitely a winning formula. Of course, the authority figures at the time were quick to damn the movie, saying it was psychologically damaging the kids who watched it. What a bunch of squares.

The werewolf aspect here is a metaphor for common teenage mood swings, with the anger of Tony being eventually channelled into the beast. There are hints of a darker subtext, particularly in a scene where he watches an attractive, partially-clad female gymnast doing her moves, right before changing into the wolf and attacking her. Overall the movie fails to notice the other similarities between the werewolf myth and adolescence, at least not to the same extent as "Ginger Snaps" or even "Teen Wolf". It tries very hard to be hip to the teenagers of that time, with fifties slang and a completely out-of-place extended music number and dance sequence thrown in. Unfortunately, it isn't really as thrilling or as fun as it really should be in places ... it's quite slow moving, takes a long time to get started and a lot of the scenes in the second half of the movie seem thrown together and lacking in narrative flow. Obviously it isn't perfect (it was given the "Mystery Science Theatre" treatment), but hey -- it's a B-movie.

Michael Landon is a real star in this movie, giving a performance that is both intense and convincing. Rather than setting his sights on movies, from here he went on to become a popular face on television, with major roles in series such as "Bonanza" (for over a decade), "Highway to Heaven", and later starring in "Little House on the Prairie". Nobody else on the cast really stands out, although everyone is competent. Tony's girlfriend is played by Yvonne Lime, who was actually dating Elvis while this movie was being made (how cool can you get?).

The notable writing team here, although originally credited as "Ralph Thornton", were in fact Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel who also wrote the sequels "I Was A Teenage Frankenstein" and "How To Make A Monster", then credited as Kenneth Langtry. Aben Kandel also did some earlier uncredited work on the "Werewolf Of London" screenplay. Unfortunately none of these movies were particularly strong in terms of story or dialogue, but nevertheless they did contribute a great deal to werewolf movie history. Director Gene Fowler Jr made his career in B-movie horrors and westerns, with this being his most well-known work (although "I Married A Monster from Outer Space" has to rank highly).

Werewolf movie fans really have to see this movie, not only because it was so popular and so influential, but because it was one of the most interesting werewolf movies of it's time.