How to Make a Monster

This is another solid entry in the teenage monster genre, starring the durable Robert H. Harris, one of the finest character actors of his era, familiar to fans of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series,.

Like the other entries in this cycle, including Teenage Werewolf and especially Teenage Frankenstein, this entire cycle might have been renamed "Make Room For Daddy," although "Daddy" in this case is a terrible authority figure whose only goal is to control his children, dominate them, and ultimately destroy them.

The entire cycle is a deconstruction of the myth of a paternal authority that dominates the social sciences of the day (parodied in Stephen Sondheim's "Gee, Officer Krupke" from West Side Story and in teen rebellion films, especially the Nicholas Ray-James Dean film, "Rebel without a Cause"), but also familiar in the idealized Daddy roles in numerous sitcoms of the era, especially, of course, Father Knows Best.

This series might have punningly be called Father Knows Beast. The entire cycle is a brilliant deconstruction of paternalistic authority. This is not to say it doesn't work on its own narrative level, though much of the plot is hokum. Still it's well done combining horror and detective genres quite well, and excellently directed as well.

Though generally consigned to the teen and drive-in genre, few films of the 1950s more seriously challenged the myth of parental authority as well as the films in this cycle did.

Movie audiences attracted by the sensationalistic advertising proclaiming, "See the ghastly ghouls in flaming colour!", doubtlessly expected that the film HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER was actually a colour movie and were surprised and disappointed to discover that the film was essentially a black and white feature with the final 8 minutes shot in colour (Leonard Maltin in his movie guide review states it is the final 18 minutes but this is probably a typographic error).

By the late 1950's, Britain's Hammer Films was producing, to great critical acclaim and financial success, a series of well-crafted horror movies which boasted that they were filmed in colour. These pioneering efforts marked the beginning of the end for the relatively inexpensive black and white programmers which had been the mainstay for the success of film companies like American International Pictures. Probably in an effort to tap into this ready-made market for colour movies, it was determined that small portions of a film would be economically shot in colour so it could be extensively promoted in the film's publicity (another consideration was to also utilize colour sequences for effect). With his next project, HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM, producer Herman Cohen would present his own answer to the Hammer movies by filming it in England and in colour.

For those interested, the colour footage begins after Pete Dummond and his captive guests, Tony and Larry, along with Pete's accomplice, Rivero, enter his house and Dummond lights some candles in his living-room/macabre shrine. Unfortunately the prints made available to television and home video omit the colour and are struck in black and white and there has been no real outcry from horror fandom or any of the genre magazines to effect a restoration of the colour footage. Perhaps someday soon this longstanding negligence on the part of the film's distributors will be rectified.

The script for HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER is credited to Herman Cohen and Kenneth Langtry. Kenneth Langtry is a pseudonym for a writer actually named Aben Kandel (he also employed the pen-name Ralph Thornton), who collaborated with producer Herman Cohen on a number of film projects including I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF, BLOOD OF DRACULA, I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN, HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM, THE HEADLESS GHOST, KONGA and THE BLACK ZOO.

Kandel's script for HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER is a reworking of much of the same plot elements found in his TEENAGE WEREWOLF and FRANKENSTEIN films, but the villain of this piece not only employs those under his control to commit murder, he also participates in some of the mayhem himself. Perhaps sensing that the late 1950's audiences were becoming too sophisticated for outright monsters in horror films, author Kandel decided to weave a story utilizing this theme and present the movie audience with a much more realistic menace, the psychotic mastermind/killer (Cohen and Kandel would carry this concept to its logical extreme the following year in HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM, a horror film without a monster in sight).

The efforts behind HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER would be much diminished without the presence of character actor Robert H. Harris. His skilled interpretation of the deranged makeup artist Pete Dummond is a multi-faceted one eliciting a wide-range of qualities which at one moment engenders our respect as he encourages a young actor to give his utmost to his film role, our sympathy in the wake of the overbearing new studio executives and their pragmatism and crassness toward horror films and his art, and our dread as he tells his two guests in his monster museum that he wants to include their "heads" in his collection. His scenes where he brow-beats his weak-willed assistant, Rivero, over his incompetency and cowardice are an absolute delight. Harris portrays his villain in a quietly menacing fashion making his characterization all the more sinister and his subtle and controlled performance is a memorable one.

One wishes that Michael Landon could have been recruited to reprise his teenage werewolf role, his participation would have certainly added more stature and authenticity to the proceedings. Since the story supposedly occurs at American International studios, instead of utilizing an actor to portray the director of "Frankenstein Meets Werewolf," it's a pity AIP standby Roger Corman wasn't approached to fill the role and it seems only fitting that James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff (the actual founders of American International) should have somehow been worked into the storyline. All these additions would have given HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER a more auto-biographical and self-parody tone.

HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER is an engaging and fascinating oddity from American International Pictures of the 1950's and marks an interesting phase in the chronology of Herman Cohen productions for this movie company.

It can never be said that American International Pictures doesn't have a sense of humor. The studio that gave us such classics as I Was A Teenage Frankenstein and I Was A Teenage Werewolf joins the two teen monsters in a cute satire of the genre.

A new day is dawning at American International, the new studio heads want no more monster pictures that were the bread and butter of its existence and paid a nice living for makeup artist Robert H. Harris. They want lighter fare for the public and give poor Harris the old heave ho.

But Harris isn't taking it lying down. A new makeup base applied to the skull allows Harris to control those he applies it on and he takes his two teen stars from Teenage Frankenstein and Werewolf and starts sending them on a murder spree and bringing back trophies.

Gary Clarke and Gary Conway were Harris's two subjects and they and Harris went along with the fun. A whole lot of familiar character actors get involved.

It's American Internation so don't expect any high production values. But it actually isn't too bad.

How To Make A Monster is made up in fact with tongue firmly in cheek.

A make-up man named Pete Dumond(well-played by Robert H. Harris) seeks revenge on a group of new studio executives who fired him by unleashing his Frankenstein and Werewolf creations upon them! He controls the young actors in the costumes via a special make-up which turns the actors into Pete's zombies.

This film is a little bit more serious than most of Herman Cohen's productions and a such just a little bit less fun. Still you can tell the actors/actresses involved here are enjoying themselves and their roles and this spirit does manage to come across to the audience. The color climax is wonderfully achieved and features some of Paul Blasidell's finest creations in a surprisingly intense sequence. Good solid B-entertainment.

In 1957, American International Pictures had a big hit with their I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Immediately following its heels came I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, and then this film. This film is in many ways an inside look at the workings of the movie business and its thinking in the 50s as well as the ending chapter in the Teenage Trilogy cycle at AIP. It is not a great horror picture by any standards, yet it is fun to watch. It has a pretty good story about a make-up man who gets the pink slip and then promises to kill the execs who fired him and bring the studio to its knees. Mild-mannered Robert Harris plays the vengeful artist with restrained aplomb. He effectively captures the insanity that courses through his mind with great subtlety. In the end, we see Harris for what he real was...not just an innocent artist but a monster obsessed with his works and his creations in much the same vein as Vincent Price's character in The House of Wax. The rest of the actors are acceptable, and the ending scene where we see the works of the artist is a walk down memory lane. On the walls one can see the head mask of the She-Creature, the It from It Conquered the World, one of the saucer men from Invasion of the Saucer Men, and many others. The colour sequence that is suppose to be in the final 8 minutes of the film does not exist on any version of the video presently out. Hope it is remastered.