I Was a Teenage Werewolf
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
I Was a Teenage Werewolf is a 1957 horror film starring Michael Landon as a troubled teenager and Whit Bissell as the primary adult. It was co-written and produced by cult film producer Herman Cohen, and was one of the most successful films released by American International Pictures (AIP).
Contents |
Plot
Landon's character is Tony Rivers, a disturbed, angry young man in the James Dean Rebel Without a Cause tradition, seeks hypnotherapy for his problem. Unfortunately, the practitioner he seeks out, played by Bissell, is also a very disturbed man with definite mad scientist overtones, who successfully regresses his patient into a werewolf with tragic results. He is under the belief that man, instead of moving forward, must go back to their pre-evolution states (for some reason, a werewolf). Tony, meanwhile, knows nothing of this. Tony transforms in the high school gymnasium (after he is startled by the school bell suddenly ringing close to him) and kills a girl who is there practicing gymnastics. Realizing that something is wrong, Rivers goes back to the doctor for help. The doctor hypnotizes him again, making him turn back into a werewolf. As he and his assistant, Hugo, prepare to take pictures of this achievement, the telephone rings, which wakes up Rivers and causes him to kill both the doctor and Hugo. He is then shot by the police as he runs from the doctor's building.
Release
The film was very profitable, as it was made on a very low budget but grossed as much as US$2,000,000 per week in its early weeks of release, huge box office by 1957 standards. Released in June, it was followed five months later by I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, and by the sequel How to Make a Monster in July 1958.
In November 1957, less than five months after the release of I Was a Teenage Werewolf, and coinciding with the release of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, AIP released Blood of Dracula, a film which bears more than a passing resemblance to their summer box office hit. More or less a remake, and with the hero and villain roles now both played by females, Blood of Dracula could have easily been titled "I Was a Teenage Vampire" Blood of Dracula, with a story and screenplay credit by I Was a Teenage Werewolf writer Ralph Thornton (a pseudonym for AIP producer Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel), features many other similarities to I Was a Teenage Werewolf - for instance, both have (among other things): a teenager with social behavior problems, an adult 'mad scientist' who is searching for the perfect guinea pig under the guise of helping troubled youth, an observer who can tell the killings are the work of a monster, a disbelieving police chief afraid of the press, a song written by Jerry Blaine and Paul Dunlap accompanied by a choreographed "ad-lib" dance number, hypnosis as scientific medical treatment, drug injections, specific references to Carpathia, hairy transformation scenes, and even some of the same dialogue. In addition, two prominent actors from I Was a Teenage Werewolf are also featured in Blood of Dracula, Malcolm Atterbury and Louise Lewis, with Lewis's villain, 'Miss Branding' a practically perfect female version of Whit Bissel's 'Dr. Brandon.' However, few critics have drawn a connection between the two films, and while most reference works consider I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and How to Make a Monster as direct follow-ups to I Was a Teenage Werewolf, not even cinema guru Leonard Maltin speaks of Blood of Dracula as even being related to the trilogy.
Pop culture impact
I Was a Teenage Werewolf helped launch Landon's career, as Bonanza started only two years later. The idea of an adult human turning into a beast was nothing new, of course, but the idea of a teenager doing just that in a movie was considered avant-garde and even shocking in 1957. Today, however, the film is largely regarded as a source of "camp" humor.
The film's Police Gazette-style title (which had already been utilized by Hollywood previously with pictures such as 1949's I Was a Male War Bride and 1951's I Was a Communist for the FBI) with the inclusion of the adjective "teenage", was constantly mocked in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Many sitcom television series in particular had characters go to movies titled I Was a Teenage Dinosaur, Monster, etc., and it was often referenced in monologues by comedians and bits by disc jockeys.Template:Fact An example of this practice is the 1959 "Dobie Gillis" novel I Was a Teenage Dwarf by Max Shulman. The original working title for AIP's 1958 sci-fi film Attack of the Puppet People was I Was a Teenage Doll.
I Was a Teenage Werewolf likely paved the way for Walt Disney to do his version of a Felix Salten shapeshifting novel, The Hound of Florence. Featuring Disney favorite Tommy Kirk as the hapless teenager and A-lister Fred MacMurray as the answer to B-lister Whit Bissell, it was released in 1959 under the title, The Shaggy Dog.
Over the years, the I Was a Teenage... title was played on by several unrelated films — usually comedies — wishing to make a connection with the cult AIP hit, including 1987's I Was a Teenage Zombie, 1992's I Was a Teenage Mummy, 1993's I Was a Teenage Serial Killer, 1999's I Was a Teenage Intellectual and the 1963 Warner Bros. cartoon, I Was a Teenage Thumb. The script title for 1985's Just One of the Guys was "I Was a Teenage Boy", a title that used a year later as an alternate for 1986's Willy/Milly. An alternate title for the 1995 hit Clueless was "I Was a Teenage Teenager".
The title for an episode of the TV series The Monkees was entitled "I Was a Teenage Monster".
In April 1997, the movie was mocked directly when it was featured as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
In a 1987 episode entitled "I Was a Middle Aged Werewolf" of the NBC TV series Highway To Heaven, angel Jonathan Smith (played by Michael Landon) turns himself into a werewolf to frighten off a couple of bullies. Smith's transformation into a werewolf is an homage/parody to Landon's role in the original "I Was A Teenage Werewolf".
In 2002, Last Gasp published I Was a Teenage Dominatrix, a memoir by Shawna Kenney.
In Stephen King's It several of the characters watch this movie. Afterwards Pennywise takes the form of a real Teenage Werewolf to frighten them, particularly Richie. When the Loser club first attacks Pennywise it takes the form of the werewolf.
Trivia
- Guy Williams appeared in this horror film as a police officer named Chris Stanley. He became famous three months later for his role of Don Diego de la Vega/Zorro on Disney's Zorro.
- Brazilian post-rock band Legião Urbana recorded a song called "Eu era um Lobisomem Juvenil" (I was a Teenage Werewolf)
- Australian Indie Rock band Faker released a song entitled "Teenage Werewolf".
- Kenny Miller, an actor who appeared in the motion picture, was a guest celebrity at the September 2006 Mid atlantic nostalgia convention, held in Aberdeen, Maryland. Miller signed autographs for fans, and sold his autobiography published by Bear Manor Media.
- The Remus Lupins, a popular wizard rock band, released an album in June 2007 called I Was a Teenage Werewolf. The bandleader's mother was Michael Landon's goddaughter.
- Psychobilly band The Cramps recorded a song called "I Was a Teenage Werewolf".
See also
