The Rebel Set

I saw this film thanks to the cult show, Mystery Science 3000 where Joel and the gang riffed this caper movie and chances are that is where most people have viewed this film. It was not a super terrible film by any means, just plays out like a lot of other films, but only with worse acting and plot points. The film is titled rebel set, but there is not all that many rebels to be found here. I guess the caper is sort of rebellious, but not really. Though the film is bad I did feel for the main character who was a struggling writer and I wanted to see "Chief" get caught and get his in the end! The movie also moves at a fairly brisk pace as we have an introduction to the characters, we have the plan and then we have the caper and then we have murder on the not so orient express!

The story has a man who seems to run a nightclub where a bunch of beatniks hang out and read poetry and such. Also, three gentlemen frequent the establishment. A writer who is rather bad at his craft. A man who desperately wishes to get out of the shadow of his mother and a down on his luck actor who cannot land a job and whose wife is literally supporting the both of them. They are approached by the man who owns the club about a job that involves them robbing 1 million dollars from an armored car. So they hop a train and during a stopover in Chicago they set their plan in motion and once back on the train and seemingly successful things begin to unravel as greed begins to take over.

This made for a good episode of MST3K and it is rather funny. This film was named, "The Rebel Set" yet the characters resemble beatniks more than they do rebels. Then they riffed a film named "Beatniks" where the characters resembled rebels more so than they did beatniks! The short at the beginning of this one featuring a little boy lost at the fair was rather funny too.

So, this film is not that great, but it was not a super terrible film. I did pull for the guy who plays the Chief on Get Smart to get his in the end, but at the same time the film just seems like a mess and it totally breaks down at the end with a rather tepid chase scene that goes on for way too long and was probably added to simply pad the film. That being said, at least you could tell what was going on and had more of a plot than The Beatniks that featured rebels...

Without mst3k, most people would never have watched these crappy movies again. Maybe people aren't happy that a bunch of puppets make fun of movies that they like, but at least it ensures that geeks (including me) everywhere will be entertained by classics like "The Creeping Terror" and "The Rebel Set" (which isn't that bad, I agree, but you really should lighten up) for years.

Yes, this is one movie I can actually watch without the mst3k filter. It starts out slowly but once they do the crime, it moves along pretty well. I like how the guy disguises himself as an evil priest. The on- foot chase at the end goes on forever though. Completely unnecessary.

I saw this movie on MST3K also. It's a really, really bad movie. The plot is implausible and the acting is awful. The question is raised in the MST episode, "who is merritt stone?" because he seems to be the train conductor, but that's actually Gene Roth. Merritt Stone is Carol's dad in Earth Versus the Spider, and the king in "the magic sword". Gene Roth is the guy everyone *thought* was merritt stone.

"The Rebel Set" would have zero significance except for the fact that "Mystery Science Theater 3000" showed it, and for the fact that it stars Edward Platt, better known as the Chief on "Get Smart". Otherwise this is one pathetic flick. Platt plays a man who gathers some people to assist him in a heist. As can be expected, Joel, Servo and Crow have a lot of fun trashing the movie. Among the people whom they mention are Rose-Marie, Martha Mitchell, and of course Merrit Stone. Trust me, you won't want to watch this movie outside of the "MST3K" version.

PS: Director Gene Fowler Jr. was better known as a film editor. He edited "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "Hang 'Em High". His other directorial efforts include "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" and "I Married a Monster from Outer Space". His father was journalist/author/dramatist Gene Fowler.

A nice entertaining suspenseful quirky '50s B-movie with a straight-forward no-frills script and dialogue. I liked this flick each of the two times I saw it, years apart.

Stand-outs are: Edward Platt as an eccentric mastermind crook, Kathleen Crowley: you can feel her pain and disappointment; and Gregg Palmer, torn between love and greed.

The drawback is that the movie was deceptively packaged as a "beatnik/rebel" movie-which, of course, it was not about (except for a few semi-coffeehouse scenes).