How to Make a Monster
About How to Make a Monster
Pete Dumond, make-up chief at American International Studios, learns he will be fired when NBN Associates buys the lot and drops horror for musicals. He mixes a numbing cream, puts it on actors Larry Drake and Tony Mantell, and sends Larry, in teenage-werewolf make-up, to kill John Nixon. After guard Monahan flashes a notebook of late checkout times, Pete, painted as a caveman, kills him, and Tony, as the teenage Frankenstein, strangles Jeffrey Clayton. Police match make-up under Clayton's nails to Pete's room. At a farewell among the monster heads in Pete's house, he stabs his assistant Rivero, a candelabra starts a fire, and Pete dies trying to save the heads while police pull the boys out.
Cast & crew
More about How to Make a Monster
Herbert L. Strock directed. Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel wrote it, and Cohen produced it with James H. Nicholson. American International Pictures released it on July 30, 1958, paired it with Teenage Caveman from September 3, and shot it at Ziv Studios under a sign reading American International Studios.
Themes
Look
Maury Gertsman photographed it in black and white. Only the last reel, the fire in the monster museum, is in color.
Music
Paul Dunlap wrote the score.
Notes
- Robert H. Harris plays Pete. Gary Clarke is Larry. Gary Conway is Tony. Paul Brinegar is Rivero. Morris Ankrum is Police Captain Hancock.
- John Ashley appears as himself in a rock number the new owners screen for Pete. Herman Cohen cast him at James H. Nicholson's request.
- Many of the heads burned in the fire were Paul Blaisdell props from earlier American International pictures, including The Cat Girl, It Conquered the World, and Invasion of the Saucer Men. Blaisdell built a new costume, Aunt Esmeralda, to burn.
- Larry and Tony are playing monsters in a picture called Werewolf Meets Frankenstein.
Scenes
- Larry, in werewolf make-up, kills Nixon in the projection room.
- The candelabra sets the monster heads on fire and Pete tries to save them.