Hollywood's first stab at Mary Shelley since the Universal days, AIP's 1957 "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein" was of course Herman Cohen's follow up to the phenomenally successful "I Was a Teenage Werewolf," shot back to back right after co feature "Blood of Dracula," in which the teen menace was a girl. Rather than a simple retread of "Werewolf," this script goes through the usual paces expected of a Frankenstein film, Herbert L. Strock's perfunctory staging enlivened by Whit Bissell's deadpan wit as the arrogant modern day Professor Frankenstein, eager to prove all those who scoffed at his limb transplant theories that he can indeed restore life to the dead, blackmailing his mild mannered assistant (Robert Burton) and even dispatching his devoted fiancée (Phyllis Coates) for disobedience. The idea of making the scientist a teenager rather than The Monster apparently didn't occur to Cohen, Hammer's massive worldwide success with "The Curse of Frankenstein" the obvious model (Peter Cushing's Baron a vivid anti hero), and Bissell, just as he had in "Werewolf," the adult manipulator of his youthful creation. A convenient crash near his home provides Frankenstein a teenage body to start with, replacing various hands and limbs but not yet the hideous wreck of a face. Gary Conway's Monster is alive at the 25 minute mark, his creator referring to him as 'my boy,' noting that he can both speak ("you've got a civil tongue in your head, I know you have because I sewed it back myself," "he should talk like a congressman at a filibuster!") and cry ("even the tear duct functions"). This Monster is a rebel with a cause, his most fervent wish to go out and walk among people, but when he does escape winds up strangling a young girl when she screams at his hideous appearance. His only other murders are clearly set up by his creator, the final one a gift of a new face (Conway's own with only a few scars), while the climax just lies there, the doctor receiving his comeuppance simply because he needed to, this final scene shot in not so vibrant color. Conway, in only his second screen role (following Roger Corman's "The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent"), would be back in the same makeup for Cohen's "How to Make a Monster," Gary Clarke replacing Michael Landon as the Teenage Werewolf, while Bissell returned to supporting ranks with "Monster on the Campus." The decade closed with Peter Cushing's sequel "The Revenge of Frankenstein," Boris Karloff starring in "Frankenstein-1970," and Donald Murphy hamming it up in "Frankenstein's Daughter," the 60s far more prolific for Mary Shelley's creation.
Review of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein
