Teen-Age Crime Wave (1955)

SPOILER: Fred F. Sears' claustrophobic hostage melodrama "Teenage Crime Wave" reminded me of the Humphrey Bogart & Frederic March thriller "The Desperate Hours," except-as the title dictates-felonious teens take refuge in a farm house and await an accomplice to show up and take them away. Roughly, this is the same set-up in William Wyler's "The Desperate Hours," but Bogie and company were grown-up prisoners on the lam. Actually, when you get down to it, Sears and "Black Dakotas" scenarist Ray Buffum and "49th Man" scribe Harry Essex appear to have taken the "The Desperate Hours" script and sized it down to a teen version of Joseph Hayes' "Desperate Hours" plot. Clocking in at a trim 77 minutes, "Teenage Crime Wave" dealt with the growing problem of juvenile delinquency that was a popular Hollywood staple during the 1950s. Mind you, "The Desperate Hours" was released in October 1955, and "Teenage Crime Wave" came out a month later in November. Notorious low-budget producer Sam Katzman, who was known for producing quickies to cash in on fads, undoubtedly drew on Wyler's "Desperate Hours," and assembled this vintage nail-biter. Although Mystery Science Fiction theater has lampooned the film, "Teenage Crime Wave" isn't a bad little movie. A slutty teenage girl, Terry Marsh (short-haired Molly McCart of "A Kiss Before Dying") seduces an older man at a bar, and a couple of armed tough teens, Mike Denton (Tommy Cook of "Night Passage") and Mike's partner Al (Jimmy Ogg of "Flying Leathernecks") rob him as she is taking him back to her apartment. The two teens are waiting for Terry to show, and one of Terry's girlfriends, innocent Jane Koberly (Sue England of "Funny Face"), is dragged into the crime. Mike and Al scram, leaving Terry and Jane behind. Since Terry has been arrested before, Jane and she are sentenced to serve time in an industrial school for girls. Once Terry reaches the age of twenty-one, she will be moved to a women's prison. Although Jane didn't have anything to do with the mugging, the authorities sentence her to industrial school because she refused to cooperate with them in their investigation. Keep in mind, Mike and Al got away.While the authorities are transporting the girls to the industrial school, reckless Mike overtakes them in his jalopy and runs them off the road. Before the cop driving the car can extract his revolver from his holster, Mike plugs him and beats up the matron sent along as an escort for Terry and Jane. Mike screws up when he decides to let the old lady live, and she provides a description of Mike's car. Mike ditches his jalopy. Indeed, he releases the hand brake and the car plunges into a ditch. The three of them barge into a farm house when an older gentleman, Thomas Paul Grant (James Bell of "The Tin Star") and his wife Sarah Wayne Grant (Kay Riehl of "The Red Menace") are living without a care in the world. Despite having a phone on a party line where the other parties could listen in on their calls, the Grants cooperate as best they can with Mike who constantly threatens to kill Mrs. Grant if her husband doesn't do as Mike commands. They manage to reach Al, and he promises to bail them out. Meantime, the police are closing the dragnet on the teens. As it turns out, the Grant's son Benjamin David 'Ben' Grant (Frank Griffin of "Westworld") is coming home to visit them. Mike adds him to the hostage list, and he waits impatiently for Al to show up. Eventually, the authorities locate the ditched jalopy as Mike grows more impatient as their predicament stretches out. Al cruises out to meet them, but the cops stop him, and he dies in an ensuing shootout. When the authorities come knocking on the Grant's door, Mr. Grant has to make up a story so the police will leave. Later, Mr. Grant tries to attack Mike, but the paranoid teen wounds him. Mike piles everybody but the wounded husband into a car and they drive away. Before long, Mike notices that they are being tailed by the police. Mike's big idea is to drive up to the Griffith Park Observatory where he hopes that they can lose the police in the crowd. Little does Mike realize that the Observatory is closed. A fight breaks out between Mike and Ben, and Ben triumphs over Mike. During the fracas, Terry catches a bullet. Later, Jane is cleared of all charges. Sears maintains a palatable atmosphere of tension during the hostage sequence. If you can see the film from the perspective that he was produced, "Teenage Crime Wave" qualifies as an average crime thriller. Mind you, it is far better than those asinine buffoons at MST3K make it out to be. The MST3K idiots love to ridicule old movies and take them out of context simply because the movies look hokey by today's standards.

I viewed this movie on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as most people born in the last 30 or 40 years has. I do not see this being a classic that people would pull up a chair and watch without the riffing of the gang on the satellite of love. Still, it had its moments as it was better than more than a couple of the films they have done. It did make me wonder what was going to happen and who was going to die. It also surprised me as I figured this one girl who was arrested and charged, but not really a part of the gang was going to figure more into the film than she did; however, for the most part all she did was fret a whole heck of a lot! The story has a girl leading a man to a deserted street where her boyfriend and a guy they set up with a girl who really wanted nothing to do with any of it mug a guy. The two guys get away when the police come, but the two girls get caught and sentenced to a juvenile delinquent prison. Not sure why the one girl did not just tell the police the identity of the two guys as that would have saved her a trip, but she and the girl are being transported when the bad girl's boyfriend shows up and kills a cop and springs the two girls, though the one did not want to go. They end up at a farm house where they keep a father and wife hostage and later their son. The law is closing in which makes them more and more desperate.This movie made for a pretty good episode of MST3K. I always prefer the more horror and science fiction oriented episode, but a few of this off the wall ones were good too. This one is a lot like the one with the gang of girls who committed all the crimes, but that episode was a lot funnier. This episode had its moments as far as the riffing, but the thing that stood out the most for me were all the false endings at the actual end of the episode. My guess is the movie was too short to fill the run time, but too long to include a short.So, the movie had some good points, it was not like The Creeping Terror or various others where there is just about no redeemable qualities, but it isn't anything you are second guessing as far as them riffing it in the first place. Honestly, the best thing about the movie was the bad girl as she was a cute little thing, much cuter than the other one who had more of the look from that era. In the end, one of those movies where you are waiting for the bad guys to get it in the end and it surprises you a bit with how it unfolds.

The "teenagers" in this crime wave are all at least 25, with Sue England clearly over-age. But it doesn't much matter because the movie never really gels. Tommy Cook strikes the tough- guy poses, but despite the energetic effort can't work up a convincing menace or snarl to go with it. Too bad a Jan Merlin or a Nick Adams didn't have the part. Then too, I wonder what the story is behind Mollie McCart. Her acting is uneven at best, still she does present an interesting screen presence. Her meager credits look like she left acting after a brief fling. Nonetheless, with more seasoning, she might have developed into an actress of note. However, both look like Oscar candidates next to poor Frank Griffin who appears too petrified to register anything but a frozen stare. Rarely have I seen anyone so clearly uncomfortable performing on screen. No wonder he switched from acting to Hollywood make-up man.1955 was the year teen sub-culture emerged with rock music, James Dean, and Elvis. Drive- in movies were catching on with both youngsters and movie-makers, a niche Roger Corman would exploit to the hilt. Actually, this Columbia release plays like a drive-in special with its emphasis on sex, fast cars, and juvenile delinquency. It's also cheaply produced, the screen time mainly confined to the drab farmhouse. I expect producers recognized this and tried to compensate with the boffo climax at the Griffith Park Observatory. The staging is pretty contrived, but does make for an interesting backdrop to the chase scenes. It looks like the classic Rebel Without a Cause and this movie were made about the same time, and I wonder which had the Observatory idea first since both use it. My guess is that fast-buck artists at Columbia anticipated Rebel's success and sought to ride the coattails. Anyway, the film blends two popular movie topics of the time—home invasion and juvenile criminality. Beyond that, there's little to recommend, except maybe a few laughs. (In passing—slight correction in another review: the Fugate-Starkweather murder spree was 1958, three years after this movie.)

Enjoyed this old time film from the 1950's where Tommy Cook, ( Mike Denton) plays the role of a two-time loser in robbery and his sidekick is Terry Marsh, (Molly McCart) who also has a police record. Mike & Molly commit another robbery and Mike kills a police office while he is escaping and this couple wind up taking over a farm house where an elderly couple live. There is another girl named Jane Koberly,(Sue England) who is a delinquent girl and gets deeply involved with Mike and Molly. Mike continues to shoot and kill people at the farm house and then there is a big shoot out at the historic Griffith Park Observation in Los Angles, California. This is not the greatest of black and white films from the 1950's, but I bet plenty of people enjoyed this film during those years.