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Weekend Discussion Thread: Least-Convincing Teenagers in a Movie or ShortAlert reader Robert suggests:
We definitely have to open this one up to shorts as well as movies, in which case I will have to nominate the unkempt, middle-aged college students in “Body Care and Grooming.” What”s your pick? 91 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Least-Convincing Teenagers in a Movie or Short”Commenting at Satellite News
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Another pick would be the two middle-aged college cheerleaders in (I think) The Home Economics Story. IIRC the riff for when they were on screen was, “LOOK, LOOK, LOOK AT MY CROTCH!”
Definitely the strangler guy from Teenage Strangler. I *never* thought he looked like a teenager. SOmeone else mentioned Vaughn and his receding hairline, the so-called “teenage” strangler WAS bald. And schools don’t usually hire teenagers to be janitors, do they? Well, maybe for a bizarre career day.
Ring Of Terror, Is This Love?, What About Juvenile Delinquency?, and Teenagers From Outer Space are all the champs, in my opinion, but Tommy Kirk, in my opinion, is just as bad as the receding-hairline guy from Soultaker in as far as not looking as young as he was supposed to be-in Catalina Caper, he and his ladies-man friend are supposed to be college freshmen, I think, but Tommy easily looks 30. He looks even worse in Village Of The Giants. The Mickey Mouse Club must have aged him BADLY. Also gotta give a shout out to Arch Hall Jr…..not that he didn’t look young enough, he was just butt-ugly. The only short I can think of with authentic-looking teenagers, actually, is Cheating. :-)
Another vote for “Is This Love?” Actress Lynne Gorman was 37 (according to IMDB) when she played college student Liz (Peggy’s mom..er roommate).
Let’s not forget Tim Gamble (Johnny Washbrook), who played Russell Johnson’s stepson in “The Space Children.” Not only was he much taller than rest of the kids, his voice was as low as any of the adults!
# 52 – Waaaaaait – He was supposed to be a teenager?!? I thought he was a senior citizen?!?
I think I’ll go with the ‘high schoolers’ from Earth vs. The Spider. I never got the feeling of teenageness from them.
Good answers so far. If we’re going for shorts, I would say my favorite, Why Study Industrial Arts? has some pretty old looking teenagers in it (all in white short shorts at one point) that look like they could be poker buddies with the coach.
As for features, can’t argue with Giant Gila Monster, Soultaker, Mel Torme in Girls Town, Buzz in Girl in Gold Boots, or anything with “teenage” in the title (i.e. Teenagers from Outer Space, Teen-age Strangler, and Teenage Crimewave).
But how about the “kids” in Attack of the the Eye Creatures? Young looking they were not. But they were smoochers.
On a side note, anybody ever look at a High School yearbook from the 50’s or 60’s? Every senior photo I’ve ever seen, they all look like they should be in their 30’s, selling insurance or something. I think kids looked older in the 50’s/early 60’s, like little clones of their parents, so when I see a 30 year old high schooler in an old 50’s movie, it seems sorta right to me. But then again, just an observation from someone born in 1980.
Definitely “Ring of Terror”. “Carl Moffat feared not…” except for the whole near death or hip replacement surgery that looked to be about a month away, whichever came first.
Pyuma!?! Pyuma!?!
#52: Unless that was just a little joke on your part (hard to tell when it’s typed and not spoken) – the janitor in Teenage Strangler wasn’t supposed to be a teen.
He’s been mentioned before but the first one who came into my mind was Dr. Smith from Earth vs. the Spider.
He must’ve stayed back QUITE a few times.
Oh, the pain…the pain.
“These are the battered faces of men in their 40’s”…..RING OF TERROR!
Between their old faces lit from underneath in the auTOPsy scene and their constant failed attempts at cracking lame jokes with their “fraternity”….it’s just too much.
My vote goes to Buzz from Girl in Gold Boots. When you set your film in a high school, you are asking for some suspension of disbelief about your actors’ ages. Of course it still looks ridiculous to see geriatrics with backpacks and books, but at least the movie tells you up front where it’s coming from. But that’s what makes Buzz so ridiculous: they don’t try to establish the fact that he’s “just a child” until an hour into the movie. They let you take him at face value as an icky, forty-year-old elf, and then, ‘Oh, by the way, he’s a teenager.’ And there’s nothing in the story that requires him to be! All they had to do was strike a few lines about him being young and there would’ve been no problem. It’s almost like they decided to throw in the “Imagine a young kid like me breaking into a life of crime!” angle only halfway through filming—and after casting, of course.
“Are You Ready For Marriage?” (aka “Boing!-The Movie”)
Larry & Sue : 19 & 18? Naah!
Gotta agree with everyone who voted for Earth vs The Spider. Honestly, Joe, the guy who’s car keeps getting borrowed looks older than the physics teacher. It must worry his wife and kids that he still attends high school and lets other “kids” borrow the family hot rod.
Without reading any of the previous postings, I have to say the girlfriend/roommate in “Are You Ready for Marriage?” (is that the right one?) who is clearly in her mid-to-upper 30s gets my vote for top of the heap.
That is, I meant “Is This Love?” — just like everybody else.
All the “teenagers” in Girl’s Town. Well I am assuming they are supposed to be teenagers. When I was a teen, there were no girls that even came close to resembling Mamie Van Doren. In any way!! EVER!! Why weren’t there any girls back in high school that looked like her? WHY WHY WHY?? (Sorry off track here)
Anyway, yeah nobody in Girl’s Town looked like a teen.
Not looking at other comments, I say the main actress in The Horror at Party Beach.
Hoo, boy, were the ‘kids’ in ‘Ring of Terror’ old! I’m willing to forgive the casting directors, because without those forty-something teeners we’d never have been given ‘The Old School’ sketch, which for some reason is one of my favourites.
Then there’s the Ben Cross-lookalike in ‘Teenagers From Outer Space’. That guy was definitely on the wrong side of 40.
Also, the Romulan roommate in ‘Is This Love?’ I’m guessing she was cast because no one else showed up to read for the part? Her obvious non-teenageness coupled with her holier-than-thou attitude make her probably one of my least-favourite characters in a MSTied short.
MikeH- In answer to your question, perhaps you attended an all boy HS?
“Anyway, yeah nobody in Girl’s Town looked like a teen.” I dunno. Paul Anka certainly had an unformed look to him and indeed I find that he was 18 at the time of Girls Town. Sad thing is, judging from his singing and songwriting, he never got any better with time.
I would also have to go with Michael Landon from I was a Teenage Werewolf. Never did believe he was a teen in high school. Looked like his girlfriends dad. It could be that, or just too hard to see him as anything by Laura Ingles dad. DARN YOU LITTLE HOUSE!!!!
for my vote:
‘earth vs spider…’
‘ring of terror…’
‘is this love or, just rough sex…’
of course don’t forget that young wippersnapper buzz from ‘girl in gold boots’ icky elf or no, he was collecting social security when he did that movie…
My first vote goes to the teleporting Icky Elf “kid.” Second vote for the weathered adults in Ring of Terror. I really hate that muckety muck senior(literally?) frat clown
who seemed to think every line was an opportunity to show off his vaudeville flair. Those are my two votes these year.
Young as he looked in Teenage Caveman, Robert Vaughn was born in 1932 and the movie was made in 1958. That math does not equal “teenage”.
Ring Of Terror was the first thing that came to mind before I even got that far in the original topic article at top. I love that episode, but wow, there’s not much about it that’s convincing starting with the casting. And I’ve always wondered why the students are all caught up in undergraduate teenage activities like rushing fraternities and such when they are supposed to be in medical school already. Med school is post-graduate work and quite time consuming and competitive and I hardly think the students at that level, being a few years older besides, are consumed with attending beer mixers and fraternity parties all the time. People in med school are trying to survive and get their degree at that point and it’s hard work, even more than the pre-med undergraduate work. The whole movie is idiotic starting with the introduction by the man with the cat.
Interestingly, Tommy Kirk was born in 1941 and Catalina Caper was released in 1967. He was the same age as Robert Vaughn in Teenage Caveman at the time.
I have seriously read every post , and you all have covered everything that first came to my mind. A couple of entries I would add (I recently watched both of these episodes) are Paul and Marta from “The Crawling Hand”, and our quartet of “young” heroes from “Bloodlust!”
I haven’t read all the entries, so somebody probably already said this, but the teenagers in Daddy-O are probably about forty-six, maybe more. Also, the love-happy couple in “Are You Ready for Marriage” don’t like their just getting ready to go to college. Especially the girl, who always looks like she’s shaking off a hangover.
What are you talking about, Cambottalks, you idiot? The teens in Are You Ready for Marriage were fine. And she was just stressed out because her parents didn’t want her to get married.
Don’t beat me up about it, Cambottalks! I meant that other one. Aw, what was it?
You mean “Is this love?”
No. Not that one. I haven’t seen that one.
You haven’t seen it? What’s wrong with you? (Idiot.)
Robert Vaughn and a receding hairline. Actually, some teens actually start receding that early. It’s kind of sad.
I love the ‘Old School’ sketch they did about lazy boy recliners and pouring Geritol on the coaches head.
Yep, I think that about covers ’em :-D
While many people have mentioned the Ring of Terror guys, no one specifically mentioned the Casey Kasem guy and the worst one, the guy who was leading the upperclassmen “assignment” discussion, who appeared to be in his fifties. The wrinkly forehead alone was a bit of a shocker for a man who was supposed to be in his twenties.
Now while I don’t agree with it personally, I’m surprised that no one’s mentioned Marilyn Manning in Eegah. I’ve read more than a few reviews that suggest she looks as if she’s in her thirties, but I don’t see it.
And to flip the topic, T in Quest of the Delta Knights was pretty gross, when he’s being sexually propositioned in a brothel (by the oddly insistent female lead) despite the fact that he obviously hadn’t hit puberty yet.
Am I the only one that sees the irony that any movie with the word “teenage” in the title never fails to have no one in it less than 27?
I don’t think they ever made the assumption that Ray Dennis Steckler’s character in The Incredibly Strange Creatures was a teenager, but they kinda played with the idea that they should be youths (what with the girl living at home with family, and Ray and his foreign roommate having a squallor of an apartment, much like a first time out on their own feel).
Given that Steckler had a widow’s peak that makes Argentina embarrassed, I’d say he’d be in the running.
“I just got you a subscription to Modern Maturity.”
Definitely Ring of Terror. Nobody in that movie was under 30 let a lone a teenager.
#58
Yes, I was joking about pretending I misinterpreted the “Teenage” in Teenage Strangler as referring to the actual guy who strangled “teens”.
Heh, Earth Versus The Spider is a good one. While the two leads were reasonably plausible as teenagers, I didn’t even realize that the band was supposed to be teenagers. I just thought they were a local band who rented out the high school gym to rehearse in. It never even occurred to me that they were supposed to be high school students.
I will mention though that just because a guy’s balding doesn’t mean he’s old. Ray Dennis Steckler was around 24 when Incredibly Strange Creatures was being filmed, and take a look at how far he’d gone. (I love the line “widow’s peak that makes Argentina embarrassed” ) I don’t think his character was supposed to be all that far off from that age. Plus, back in those days, guys didn’t fight the receding hairline quite as hard, both in adjusting their look to minimize it and the available remedies to slow it down.
A couple of people have mentioned premature balding. My grandfather had Eisenhower hair by his early twenties. It happens. Thankfully I missed that gene.
Back on topic, I don’t think anyone’s mentioned Melissa Strickland from the Touch of Satan. Just because her sister Lucinda didn’t look a day over one hundred and twenty seven, doesn’t mean she looked like a teenager.
Bald people are just gross.