8mm Forum: I Was A Teenage Frankenstein

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Posted by Terry Lagler (Member # 1110) on October 22, 2014, 03:48 PM:

In the spirit of the season my plan is to watch a horror related film every night in countdown to All Hallows’ Eve.

I'll be posting each film on my website. But for now here is my mini review for this classic.

Standard 8mm / 200′ BW silent edition. / Ken Films

American International Pictures, fifties teenagers and Whit Bissell. Nuff said.

Our crazy scientists get all excited when the newspapers announce the death of a bunch of teens. Professor Frankenstein jumps at the chance to reassemble one with a horrible case of something worse than acne. Gary Conway is the muscular creation – but that face! Our monster hero takes a walk and kills an unlucky co-ed. Bissell decides he must fix his face in order to control him….and then…..destroy him! But teenage Frankie will have none of it and electrocutes himself instead!

B+ for the Frankenstein monster mask alone!
Nice print if a bit dark. Ken does a decent, fun edit here.

Cheers
Terry

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on October 23, 2014, 09:47 AM:

Terry,

Thanks for the great review and pictures. In comparing different prints of this title, I noticed that two scenes last longer in what I'm guessing was an earlier version. The scene where Prof. Frankenstein shows Bob his improved face and the finale where Dr. Karlton rushes over to the collapsed teenager has a bit more footage.

I wonder if these were trimmed because of negative damage in later printings or perhaps to lower costs by reducing the total footage.

Doug

Posted by Terry Lagler (Member # 1110) on October 23, 2014, 02:55 PM:

Very interesting Doug. I believe my digest has the scenes you mentioned. Maybe an earlier version because it is standard 8.
Hmmmm

Cheers
Terry

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on October 24, 2014, 06:48 AM:

At our May Cinesea film collectors get together, our forum moderator, Doug Meltzer, showed us the Ken silent I Was a Teen Age Frankenstein, but he had put sound stripe on it...gone to a DVD or some source...pulled the sound from it, matched it to the Super 8 digest and recorded the sound. He did a masterful job...and when you see one of these done that way, you also see how totally off the superimposed titles were, compared to what was really being said. The sound really made it an understandable viewing experience. Decent picture quality...not like an original, but at least not washed out.

Posted by Terry Lagler (Member # 1110) on October 24, 2014, 07:55 AM:

A sound version would be great to see!
I lucked into a few sound striped digests a few years ago. (the sound added was only music and effects) I eventually re-recorded them all with the proper soundtracks.
Great to have these as sound digests.
Monster That Challenged The World
Rodan
The Thing (this one was hard to sync dialogue to)
War Of The Worlds

So many more I'd like to do!

Cheers
Terry

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on October 24, 2014, 10:38 PM:

I've certainly seen on different Ken silent releases that the Super 8 version was a bit shorter, to trim it down to the same length of footage as the Std 8 version.

Posted by Timothy Duncan (Member # 4461) on October 25, 2014, 06:22 PM:

So glad to see a review for a silent 200 foot reel (since that's all my little collection consists of). Nice pics too, including the film box!

Posted by Brian Hendel (Member # 61) on October 26, 2014, 11:45 PM:

I have loved this film since I got the 200' as a gift from my long departed grandfather back in the early 70's. Even at 7 years old I remember thinking, 'that's the best looking Frankenstein monster ever' (after he got the right face put on!). No wonder that Gary Conway went on to pose for Playgirl. In fact, a photo of he and Whitt Bissell (in character) appear on the cover of the book Homosexuality and the Horror Film representing the mad doctor and his perfect creation. A subtext that no doubt flew right over moviegoer's heads during the initial run in the 50's!

Posted by Douglas Warren (Member # 1047) on October 27, 2014, 11:16 PM:

Oddly enough this was one of the few horror/science fiction movies of old that my local channels in Houston rarely,if ever showed.I need to hunt down a copy of this digest along with "I Was a Teenage Werewolf."Thanks for the review Terry.

Posted by Joe Vannicola (Member # 4156) on December 13, 2014, 10:06 PM:

About ten years so,my 12 year old nephew asked why I used to collect condensed versions of movies. I replied that when I was his age, that's all we had. He kind of looked at me as if I 'd lived back in the stone age. To be honest, if I hadn't moved up to 16 mm, I'd still be collecting super 8. Film Is King!

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on December 15, 2014, 12:25 PM:

We DID live in the stone age.

Posted by Kevin Wardle (Member # 1680) on December 17, 2014, 10:53 AM:

I have the trailer to this coupled with How To Make A Monster, both in black and white with their color endings! Cool! [Wink]

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