How to Make a Monster (1958).

Review #2274: How to Make a Monster.

Cast: 

Robert H. Harris (Pete Dumond), Gary Conway (Tony Mantell / the Teenage Frankenstein), Gary Clarke (Larry Drake / the Teenage Werewolf), Paul Brinegar (Rivero), Malcolm Atterbury (Security Guard Richards), Dennis Cross (Security Guard Monahan), Morris Ankrum (Police Capt. Hancock), Walter Reed (Detective Thompson), and Paul Maxwell (Jeffrey Clayton) Directed by Herbert L. Strock (#2097 - Blood of Dracula and #2098 - I Was a Teenage Frankenstein)

Review: 

It is pretty interesting to get to a film that is technically related to other movies. 1957 had seen the release of a handful of features dedicated to teenagers and monsters. It started with I Was a Teenage Werewolf, which came out in the summer before the release of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and Blood of Dracula as a double feature in November 1957. Each one saw a teen turned into a monster due to the efforts of adults for some sort of weird purpose. Now, with this film (released in July of 1958) we have another film about monsters and nefarious purposes as directed by Herbert L. Strock, who had directed two of those aforementioned films. As was before with the other films, the screenplay was written by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel while Cohen served as a producer. Supposedly, as claimed by Ed Wood, the film was a rip-off of a script he had sent to AIP (involving a killer actor), although the idea of Wood crying foul at a rip-off of his stuff is actually amusing to me. Strock would direct just three more features after this one, spending most of his time doing television along with editing and producing. The last couple of minutes, as one might have already seen from promotional stuff, does show some masks in color (the same trick as done in I Was a Teenage Frankenstein), which were designed by Paul Blaisdell for previous films such as It Conquered the World (1956), Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), and The She-Creature (1956). Conway, who had played the title threat in the Frankenstein film, is the one other link to the films here, as done by American International Pictures.

Really this is just a backstage murder procedural that happens to have a lead-in that you'll get to see a few masks. One wonders just if Jack Pierce came to mind when it comes to the script or the performance of Harris for an underappreciated effects man as the lead character. It is the kind of movie that has a clear appreciation for cheap horror and the people who obsessed over the craft. It is amusing to see a justification of John Ashley (a sometimes regular at AIP) do a song as part of "the times changing", because AIP ended up doing their own music-themed films to go with chasing other trends. Anyway, here's a movie involving special makeup cream that can leave one to the power of suggestion while people are dressed up and you have a guy calling his masks his "children". Honestly, I dug it, particularly from Harris, who seems to be having quite the time in fruitful obsession that believes going from fired to murder is totally normal, and he sure sells that nuttiness on point. It is the portrait of a man in delusion of the starkest kind: their craft. Conway and Clarke might not get much to do beside be in makeup, but they make worthy puppets to sell the idea of being ready for suggestion. It is a bit funny to see the ones who get wrapped up as targets for the monsters, because one of them gets the boot mostly because they are too savvy in crime cliches. Trhe climax works out well for those who like to gawk for curiosity at masks and silly souped-up resolutions (the AIP way). In general, this is about on par for decent AIP entertainment in giving you what you expect: silly young folks, a few decent makeup shots, and a neat little climax. It exceeds those "Teenage" films on the basis of having the commitment to have a lead performance worth writing more than two bits about for solid average fare. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

I Was a Teenage Werewolf.

Review #1912: I Was a Teenage Werewolf.

Cast: 

Michael Landon (Tony Rivers), Yvonne Lime (Arlene Logan), Whit Bissell (Dr. Alfred Brandon), Malcolm Atterbury (Charles Rivers), Barney Phillips (Detective Sgt. Donovan), Robert Griffin (Police Chief Baker), Joseph Mell (Dr. Hugo Wagner), Louise Lewis (Principal Ferguson), Guy Williams (Officer Chris Stanley), Tony Marshall (Jimmy), and Vladimir Sokoloff (Pepe, the janitor) Directed by Gene Fowler Jr.

Review: 

Admittedly, making a movie about teenagers in horror could be an interesting time, if only because the 1950s had plenty to work with for audiences to enjoy, as evidenced by the output generated by American International Pictures. There were plenty of successes and failures with this studio, where a week was all one needed to make a movie like this, made on a budget of $82,000. This would be the first of a teenage craze with AIP, with Blood of Dracula and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein being released in November 1957 as a double feature that saw teenagers transformed into a vampire and a Frankenstein's monster, respectively. How to Make a Monster (1958) featured teens being hypnotized to kill while in werewolf and Frankenstein makeup. The film was directed by Gene Fowler Jr. He was more known as an editor, participating in films such as Tales of Manhattan (1942) and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). Fowler directed dramas and Westerns in his seven-film career of directing (1957 to 1959), with two exceptions: this film and I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958).

Meh, it's not particularly interesting when compared to the slew of teenage-infused movies that came in its wake such as say, The Blob (1958), but there are a few nice things to say about its 76-minute runtime. It is at least a movie that tries to say something about teenagers and anxiety: kids sure get weird when you get on their case. In a way, it might remind one of another oddball werewolf movie in The Werewolf (1956), which had a werewolf transformation different from the usual full moon terror. In this case, the werewolf is triggered by some sort of "scopolamine serum" that helps someone in reverting their personality to primitive instinct (so yes, the doctor gives him a serum, then gradually convinces a teen that he was once a werewolf because somehow it will be good for the future of mankind...okay). This film just happens to have a janitor from the Carpathian Mountains who recognizes the threat, too. Honestly, the movie is also like the other one in not really knowing what to do with its creature (besides having both villain and victim be the same person), seemingly trapped in not doing anything more with its lead beyond the occasional line about being an ultra-aggressive dude. Landon would actually become a noted presence in television for three decades beginning in 1959, having been discovered by an agent while working as a gas service attendant near Warner Bros. (after hurting himself out of an athletic scholarship for javelin throwing at USC). He does okay with what is needed for impulse before the inevitable effects happen. After that, he kind of falls by the wayside when it comes to true dilemmas, as the movie doesn't really go farther than that when it is talking about someone being a wolf and being weird about it. Well, that or being a guy who can't control his temper, I guess. Bissell is the only other presence to focus on, since he plays the mad scientist type to about what you would expect, which basically means that if there was no mad scientist, the movie might even be more boring. So yeah, it is inevitable to see where these two go once they meet up, but you could only imagine how worse it could get. The teenagers are pretty stock, while the only noticeable support comes from future TV star Williams or the exposition-heavy Sokoloff. Besides, the body-count is pretty light, probably because the werewolf makeup comes and goes to varying effect. As a whole, it is a movie that has the blueprint for drawing a certain audience that ends up being a middling curiosity relic of its time, one that will either work out for those who desire something light and quick or not. For me, I can't quite recommend it as a good movie, but I recognize the staying power generated by an AIP flick like this one.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

The Learning Tree.

Review #1800: The Learning Tree.

Cast: 

Kyle Johnson (Newt Winger), Alex Clarke (Marcus Savage), Estelle Evans (Sarah Winger), Mira Waters (Arcella Jefferson), George Mitchell (Jake Kiner), Richard Ward (Booker Savage), Malcolm Atterbury (Silas Newhall), Russell Thorson (Judge Cavanaugh), Zooey Hall (Chauncey Cavanaugh), Dana Elcar (Sheriff Kirky), Felix Nelson (Jack Winger), and Joel Fluellen (Uncle Rob) Written, Producted, and Directed by Gordon Parks (#610 - Shaft (1971) and #1045 - Shaft's Big Score!)

Review: 

It should only makes sense that the summer of '69 would see the first studio film to be directed, written, produced, and composed by an African American director, one released by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts (as the company was known from 1967-69) with Gordon Parks being the key man for the job, and he would hire as many black technicians as he could to do the film (as opposed to utilizing all-white unions in Hollywood) in a decision supported by the studio. It is an adaptation of his 1963 novel of the same name, one that was loosely based on his upbringing in Fort Scott, Kansas (the son of a farmer, one of a group of African Americans that migrated to Kansas that is referred to as the "Exodusters"). Elements of the novel/his life are present here, such as the fact that one of his high school teachers told him that going to college would be a waste of money (he was the youngest of fifteen children, incidentally). Parks was born in 1912, and he had to fend for survival after he moved to Minnesota shortly after his mother's death at the age of fourteen, which led him to work in various positions such as piano player, singer and bus boy. It was at the age of 25 that he became interested in his first career: photography. He would work in a variety of positions from freelance work to fashion to work with the government (such as the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information). Consider that Parks did not become a film director until he was nearly sixty years old. In the course of his life, he would be noted as a pioneer for black filmmakers (one who made five feature films from 1969 to 1976) alongside his other talents in photography and music before his death in 2006 at the age of 93.

Within its coming-of-age story is a tender experience that manages to tell a worthwhile story without falling prey to turning into sentimental goo; it wasn't the first black film based on one's personal experience (The Homesteader (1919) is one example, although Oscar Micheaux's film is lost), but it certainly has a key place when it came to the next phase of American cinema in regards to black filmmaking when talking about facing harsh realities and developing self-determination (which would be done over and over again in later years with other memoir films). As one might expect, this film was shot in his home state of Kansas, with principal location shooting being done around his own hometown; of course, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts did send studio folks out to check on the production from time to time to keep things on track, and there was lingering friction between some of his contemporaries in the town and Parks before it was shot in 1968. As the lead actor Johnson (the son of Nichelle Nichols) had been acting for nine years before he was cast in this film, which would be his first main starring role as a seventeen-year-old actor, and Parks had him undergo four screen tests that actually gauged the abilities of the other actors as opposed to him (as it would turn out, this ended up being the role he is best known for). He works quite well here, as we see him carry a story of learning with an earthy charm that keeps the film working through its episodic pace with no bumps in the road. Clarke (also in a key role that he is remembered for more than anything) makes a fair adversary, one who represents the other side of the coin in terms of differing points when it comes to growing up as a black man facing the realities of the time (Kansas in the 1920s) that makes the inevitable confrontation all the more interesting. Evans, Nelson, and Ward all represent distinct parental figures to the characters in worthy effectiveness. The film manages to roll with a story of hard learning with bittersweet effectiveness that works to viewers familiar with stories that had been told for decades prior (this time with a black voice) without falling prey to corny cliches. As such, it manages to hold up well after five decades as both a worthy debut for Parks and a worthy piece of African American cinema that should be seen at least once.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: Come Back, Charleston Blue.