I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)

User Rating:

4.1/10   

Director:

Gene Fowler Jr.

Writers:

Herman Cohen (writer)
Aben Kandel (writer)

Release Date:

19 June 1957 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

The most amazing motion picture of our time!

Plot:

A troubled teenager seeks help through hypnotherapy, but his evil doctor uses him for regression experiments...

Plot Keywords:

Experiment | Werewolf | Killer Teen | Psychiatry | Party

Cast

Michael Landon	...	Tony Rivers (The Teenage Werewolf)
Yvonne Fedderson	...	Arlene Logan (as Yvonne Lime)
Whit Bissell	...	Dr. Alfred Brandon
Tony Marshall	...	Jimmy
Dawn Richard	...	Theresa
Barney Phillips	...	Det. Sgt. Donovan
Ken Miller	...	Vic (the bongo player)
Cynthia Chenault	...	Pearl, Vic's Girl (as Cindy Robbins)
Michael Rougas	...	Frank
Robert Griffin	...	Police Chief P.F. Baker
Joseph Mell	...	Dr. Hugo Wagner (Brandon's assistant)
Malcolm Atterbury	...	Charles Rivers
Eddie Marr	...	Doyle
Vladimir Sokoloff	...	Pepe the Janitor
Louise Lewis	...	Principal Ferguson

Also Known As:

Blood of the Werewolf (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

76 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:(Banned) (1958) | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:Unrated

Company:

Sunset Productions

Trivia:

Guy Williams (Officer Stanley) would reunite with Michael Landon on several episodes of "Bonanza" (1959) as his cousin Will.

Quotes:

Dr Alfred Brandon: I'm going to TRANSFORM him, and unleash the savage instincts that lie hidden within... and then I'll be judged the benefactor. Mankind is on the verge of destroying itself. The only hope for the human race is to hurl it back into its primitive norm, to start all over again. What's one life compared to such a triumph?

Movie Connections:

Featured in Michael Landon: Memories with Laughter and Love (1991) (V)

Soundtrack:

Eeny Meeny Miney Moe

A classic of its kind

You really had to be a teenager in 1957 to appreciate the effect this movie had on teens back then. Elvis was just starting out and there are similarites to the reactions of adults and teenagers to both icons. (In fact Yvonne Lime was "dating" Elvis (pictures of Elvis and Yvonne together were in movie magazines back then) when this film was made and from what I understand, he even visited the set. Too bad they couldn't have had him sing a song in it!) There is an amazing backstory AMC could make about the senate hearings on juvenile delinquency and this film; the senators mentioned the bad effects this film had on teenagers even though none of them had seen it!

Anyway, Gene Fowler Jr (who had edited Academy Award films like LAURA) was chosen to direct this, his first film and although he at first had second thoughts about doing it, his wife convinced him "no one would see it anyway." Boy, was she wrong! His background as an editor helped him be a better first-time director than most and helped make this picture, made on a shoe-string budget in only 7 days, better than all the other teen horror films back then. The camera angles on the fight at the beginning, Dawn Richard's gymnist seeing the werewolf upside down at first (and therefore the audience too), showed that he had good ideas in setting up shots.

Michael Landon, contrary to what some believe, never downplayed his connection to this film for it gave him his start in show business. He may at first have had doubts about being connected with it with the initial uproar, which is why he turned down the chance to play the werewolf a second time, but after that, he never bad-mouthed the film. In fact, he paid homage to it on a Halloween episode of "Highway to Heaven."

Anyway, the acting is good all around with standout performances by Landon and Whit Bissell. The "science" used to turn Tony into the monster may be silly today, but in the 1950's, there were a lot of talk and film plots about past-life regression following the Bridey Murphy newspaper accounts (also used in THE SHE-CREATURE). Again you had to live in the 1950's to understand all this. Philip Scheer's werewolf makeup is one of the better pre-Howling/American Werewolf ones in movie history and while the transformation scene isn't as good as in THE WOLF MAN or THE WEREWOLF, the director did not have a lot of money or time to work with and did a good job considering.

A film has to be pretty good, even with a low budget, to be as successful as this one was...and to remain a cult favorite 45 years later. It has stood the test of time and deserves to be considered a classic of its kind.