Inexplicably, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein was not nominated for any Academy Awards in 1957…go figure. Nor was it made into a musical, though if it had, perhaps we wouldn’t have needed Young Frankenstein…no-o-o-o, strike that…we still would have needed “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and Frau Brucker.
Interestingly enough (or not), this flick had a companion film; I Was a Teenage Werewolf. I assume they were shown as a double-feature. Werewolf was no better or worse than Frankenstein, but Werewolf did feature a young Michael Landon (James Dean, I assume, not being available). I find myself speculating on the potential effect of Mr. Landon’s work in this film on his later TV work. Imagine the change in viewer demographics had the title been; “Little House of the Hairy”.
But tonight’s film is I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. It features a classic cast with Phyllis Coates (Tiger Girl of Saturday serial fame), Gary Conway (TV – “Land of the Giants”), and the always spot-on Whit Bissell (weasely, trouble-making boyfriend in The Day the Earth Stood Still and whiny scientist nerd in The Creature of the Black Lagoon).
One of the special delights in this film is a basement scientific laboratory (complete with alligators!) that rivals anything that Ed Wood ever put on the screen.
It also features the usually mild Mr. Bissell goin’ all postal on his fiance, Ms. Coates – a sudden and disturbing reminder that domestic violence has been with us for a long time.
To sum up; the flick is just…poor.
As my great friend; teacher and philosopher Paul Thomas frames the question when confronted with such jaw-dropping drivel; “What kind of mind…?”
It’s not an everyday occurrence to get a chance to act in a play or musical more than once. I don’t mean multiple performances like four weekends of The Importance of Being Earnest or two years spent touring dinner theaters in Everybody Loves Opal. I’m talking about separate productions of the same work. It’s hard enough to land an opportunity to do a play once!
I’ve done The King and I twice (different roles) and Measure for Measure twice (different roles).
Three times I’ve played the role of Tom Daley in That Championship Season. All three were successful productions. The first was at Studio Players (mid-70’s), the second at the University of Kentucky (early 80’s), and the third was with Phoenix Group (1992).
The second production is the one that prompted this reminiscence.
It was directed by Joe Ferrell (this is where I first met Joe) and featured Paul Thomas, Dr. Jim Rodgers (as an actor!), Eric Johnson, myself…and Gene Arkle. We were performing in the Laboratory Theatre in the Fine Arts Building. A few years later this theater was renamed the “Briggs Theatre”.
The play concerns the reunion of the remnants (four players and their coach) of the 1955 Pennsylvania High School Championship Team. Gene played the coach, the rest of us were the players.
Side note…
Jim Rodgers doesn’t act often but he’s a fine actor. Paul Thomas acts more often and he too is a fine actor. However, as basketball players…well…they are fine actors.
We used to warm-up each night with a real, live, no-batteries-included basketball.
We would whip it around the stage (yes, whip it…work with me…I speak though the happy filter of memory here) for ten or fifteen minutes with Joe Ferrell and Assistant Director Ralph Pate watching in terror and then begin rehearsal.
While whipping the basketball around, when Eric passed to Jim, he would, with great regularity and malice aforethought, put a forward spin on his bounce pass. Now, Jim is a master of the English language, but English on a basketball was pure Greek to him. The ball would, with great regularity and malice aforethought, sail under Jim’s outstretched hands and strike him everywhere (yes, everywhere) except those hands. Jim would emit a polite “oof”, Eric would giggle and cover his mouth, Paul would look for a place to hide and we would continue our warm-up. It was a marvel and I’m sure it somehow made us a better team.
End of side note.
The big moment in the play comes after my character has fled the scene. The remaining team members are drunk and demoralized and the Coach must rally them. He does this with a wonderful long speech. At the end of the speech, the Coach places a recording (remember them?) on his record-player (remember them??) of the play-by-play call of the final game-winning shot of their championship game. It is a stirring moment. The team members respond, I return to the fold and we lurch to the end of the show.
The closing performance of our show was going as planned until this big moment.
I was offstage…listening…thinking…of basketballs and trophies and booze and betrayals…and whether my post show snack would be a cheddarburger from Charlie Brown’s or a disastrous pile of hash browns from Tolly Ho…in short, I was preparing (as an actor must) for my next entrance.
Gene was on a roll. His speech was indeed stirring. He built it to a climax and marched to the record-player and slapped that record on.
Silence ensued…
…and continued to ensue.
Finally, Gene said “I’ve been meaning to get this thing fixed.”
Offstage, I’m saying thanks and hosannas to every god known to man that I’m not onstage.
Gene took a deep breath and continued, “As you know, the game ended like this…”
And he proceeded to recreate the entire play-by-play himself!
It was absurd. It was heroic. It was a game saver.
We were saved………..by our Coach.
As usual, there is truth in dem dere memory, but I can’t recall just how much.
Imagine, if you will, a show in Lexington with a cast consisting of Trish Clark, Jane Dewey, Eric Johnson, Kevin Hardesty and Paul Thomas. Sweeter than sweet. If you’re the director of that cast your duties are basically to turn on the lights at rehearsal, right?
Now imagine that show being not so hot.
In fact, imagine it being thoroughly shredded by the Herald’s reviewer.
As Tom Waits so elegantly says; “Impossible you say? Beyond the realm of possibility? Nah!”
It can and did happen. I have the scars.
All it takes is a director with little directorial experience, even less experience with improvisational farce, and NO real vision beyond “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” (I’m reminded of Mickey Rooney’s immortal query; “Hey! Why don’t we put on a show!!”)
If you are lookin’ for a director of YOUR production of Bullshot Crummond with exactly that resumé, I’m your guy.
This was back in the early, early years of Actors Guild when they were performing in the basement of Levas’ Restaurant on Vine Street. The cast worked hard. Kevin played about eight different characters. Eric played two, including one duet scene with himself (a dream come true, I’m sure). Trish was ultra-sultry. Jane was innocent and dizzy. Paul was checking out the locations of the exits. All were trying to figure how to get new agents when they had no agents to begin with.
What can I say? The show seemed funny to me. (BUZZER! Thank you for playing, Mr. Leasor.)
Then came opening night and we played our farce to an audience of seven (7) (VII)…plus the reviewer (Tom Carter).
It was a long night’s journey into sad.
(Fade to…)
The next morning I awoke to the devastating review. Tom summed things up by saying “Leasor has done his friends the disservice of casting them in roles for which they are not suited.”
Ma-a-a-n!
Janie removed the poison/razor/gun from my hand and convinced me that though life was obviously no longer worth living it was still necessary to do so as we still owed a lot of money on the house.
Therefore, my next concern was how to help my cast through this undeserved (on their part) catastrophe.
I called an acquaintance who owned a t-shirt shop, set the wheels of foolishness in motion, and that night each member of the cast found, at their make-up station a bright red t-shirt that read “I am NOT Roger Leasor’s friend, please cast me”.
It seemed to help break the ice.
After that evening’s show, Eric went out for his post-show “snack” to Columbia’s Steakhouse (that Steak-for-Two and a Diego Salad always serves well when it’s time for a little something to take the edge off at midnight). He was resplendent in his new t-shirt. Guess who was standing at the bar…none other than the reviewer himself. Eric, of course, diplomat that he is, made certain Tom saw the shirt…less than 24 hours after the review was written!
Lexington’s a small town at heart. I saw Tom at lunch the next week at the Saratoga (the “Toga” always served well when a blue-cheese-drowned lettuce wedge and a chicken-fried steak was needed to take the edge off at noon). He was gracious and impressed with the alacrity of our response (if not our show) and life in our small town went on.
June's Boy 