I Was a Teenage Frankenstein

This is top of the line 1950's B movie schlock.And it is wonderful.Countless tv viewings and a recent VHS viewing confirms this.

Prof Frankenstein(Whit Bissel)is visiting from England on a lecture tour.He wants to create a perfect body from a youth.As it so happens there is a terrible auto accident outside which allows him to grab a corpse.

Of course there is the hesitant assistant to deal with. There is also the nosy just moved in fiancee to contend with. Frankenstein manages to put together a body but it has a severe case of morning face.The boy disobeys his creator and goes out for a stroll. He also kills a blonde and creates a panic.

Well the pesky bride to be stumbles upon the "monster" which angers the mad doctor to no end. He convinces the boy that she wants to kill him. So our boy kills her and she is dumped in the alligator pit(I'm not making this up).The pit is used to dispose of spare parts by the way.

The boy needs a nice face(does he ever)so he and the doctor go out in search of one.Happily they locate one and it is grafted on.Everybody is all smiles now.

The doctor and his assistant prepare to go to England. The boy has no passport so they plan to dissect him for easier international travel.The rousing finish is in color.

Whit Bissel gives a great performance as the cracked to the max mad doctor.He has a heck of a realtor that can set him up in temporary lodgings with a lab & an alligator pit in the basement.Wonder where he got the alligator.

If you can overlook or poke fun at the plot holes you can really enjoy this flick.See it if you can!

I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN is the story of Professor Frankenstein (Whit Bissell- I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF), and his experiments involving dead tissue re-animation. As the great-great-grandson of Baron Frankenstein, he plans to stitch together a familiar patchwork of body parts, in order to create life.

Conveniently, a fatal car crash occurs just outside the Professor's home / morgue / lab, providing him with his much needed, young, though heavily damaged cadaver! He begins work on his plan immediately, assisted by Dr. Karlton (Robert Burton). Mad science unfolds.

How could anything possibly go wrong?

Thoroughly absurd, IWATF is also exceptionally entertaining! Bissell's character is so tightly wound, that his head could fly off at any second, like a runaway balloon! The monster's brooding, angst-ridden persona is a riot!

EXTRA POINTS FOR: #1- The Professor's "spare-body-parts-disposal-by-alligator" system! #2- His attempts at carrying on a love life, while spending most of his time heartlessly creating his monster! #3- His nosy fiancee and her big surprise! #4- The monster's homicidal rampages!

A true classic. Now, if only I could acquire an alligator and some equipment...

What do Whit Bissel, Donald Murphy and Boris Karloff all have in common? They all played "the last member of the Frankenstein family" within a single year! Boris emoted in Cinemascope in FRANKENSTEIN 1970, Donald Murphy built monsters in a wine cellar in FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER and Whit Bissel created a teenage monster in the movie I am about to discuss.

As if most teenagers were not monsters already in their own right Whit decides to build an artificial man out of parts from young healthy teen athletes. To keep his creation under control Whit fixes everything except .. .wait for it . . .the face. The monster (Gary Conway) has the body of a muscleman but a face that, well, looks like it was sculpted out of clay (which it was!) and when he talks he sounds like someone who is, well, talking through a mask!

Okay, this has already been discussed in detail by other reviewers on this board but everyone seems to have ignored one very obvious gaffe. We all know the classic line "Speak! You have a civil tongue in your head. I know because I sewed it in place myself!" But in that same scene Whit gets a line that should properly have gone to his assistant (Robert Burton). Remember that Whit's Prof. Frankenstein has lived his entire life in England and he is visiting this country for a relative short time. His remark about the newly revived Creature "He should be chattering like a Senator at a filibuster." is far too American a statement to come from someone who is just visiting from another country. It is better suited to Robert Burton's character who is an American. Perhaps if Whit had said "chattering like an MP" (Member of Parliament) instead. Oh well, this is still a fun movie, especially now that the colour ending has been restored.

Points of interest: Gary Conway's real name is Gareth Carmody. He changed it himself because he thought it sounded too "highbrow" for an actor. Robert Burton later went on to battle THE SLIME PEOPLE in 1963. And of course many of us remember Phyliss Coates from "Superman" on television but how many remember she appeared in the 1952 film INVASION USA along with Noel Neill? Both Lois Lane's in one movie! I don't know what became of the alligator, but he certainly seemed to enjoy his role and he does indeed give a convincing performance.

"I Was a Teenage Frankenstein" is a more modern take on the old Frankenstein story. It stars the oddly cast Whit Bissell...odd because he's supposed to be British and sounds about as British as Elvis or Urkel!

When the story begins, Professor Frankenstein is lecturing about transplants...something very new back in 1957 and which hadn't yet been successfully done for most organs. Some of the folks at the lectures are skeptical...and Dr. Frankenstein is determined to show them. So, like the classic story, he assembles a monster out of body parts. Oddly, however, aside from the monster's face, he looks pretty ordinary. And, to control the monster, the Doctor promises to give his creation a new face IF it does his evil bidding...such as murder!

This Dr. Frankenstein is much more of an evil sociopath than you would expect. He's a nasty jerk who is cruel and abusive...and he's pretty shocking...more so than his monster! Just how awful and depraved he is, you'll have to see for yourself. However, interestingly, this is a positive aspect of the film....making Frankenstein that awful did add to the excitement in this otherwise ordinary monster film. Worth seeing despite the word 'teenage' in the title.

The production of this film, hot on the heels of Michael Landon's immortal 'Teenage Werewolf' opus, signified that Teen Horror was in fact a specific genre of film. Teen Horror films have been a constant cinematic presence from 1957 to the present, although they have waxed and waned several times over the past 53 years. Everything you see in 'the Craft,' 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' and of course the ubiquitous 'Twilight' movies is a re-hash of Teenage Werewolf and Teenage Frankenstein.

Wereas Teenage Werewolf focuses on the personality and emotions of the Michael Landon character, thus structurally grafting the point of view of 'Rebel Without a Cause' to the horror genre, Teenage Frankenstein is more pre-occupied with Whit Bissel's portrayal of a Dr. Frankenstein living in the era drive-in movies. As such, Teenage Frankenstein follows more traditional monster movie conventions than Werewolf.

Nonetheless, teenagers are featured heavily, and teen actor Gary Conway as the eponymous monster is a major presence, so it is indeed appropriate to study this film in the context of the Teen Horror genre.

This film is an excellent example of the aesthetics of low-budget 1950's monster film-making. The acting is earnest and competent, the script does not get bogged down with dialog that would try to explain weak plot points, but rather dances across such places quickly, as one might dash across a wobbly bridge before it can collapse. It moves quickly and delivers just what the intended audience expected and needed: cheap and harmless thrills.

One of my favorite sequences involves the monster's search for a suitable head for himself at a nightime lovers' lane with teens parked in their cars. This is the earliest example I know of where the monster targets promiscuous teens. Also, since this film was obviously intended to be shown at drive-ins, so it must have been neat for 1957 teens parked in Studebakers in the dark to imagine their own heads as being coveted by a monster lurking somewhere nearby. Almost pushing the forth wall, really.

While this movie is fun and better than the title would suggest, it does lack the original psychic/emotional center that characterizes the classic horror pictures. King Kong, Frankenstein, Godzilla and Creature from the Black Lagoon all have a definite theme, a center, a statement relating to life and the human condition. So far as I could discern, this film does not. If a viewer can content himself with a bit of escapist fun, he will be satisfied.