The Cry Baby Killer

Jack Nicholson made his debut on the big screen with this acceptable thriller from the series B, subsection youth and violence, produced by Roger Corman, in which he shares the cast with Carolyn Mitchell, a beautiful and young actress totally forgotten, who shortly after the end of filming would become nothing more and nothing less than the fourth wife of Mickey Rooney before passing away tragically.

Virtually the entire career of the director, Jus Addiss, was focused on television, and that is something that shows for good in the planning and staging of the film, with a sustained rhythm and without ups and downs. The youthful story of love, jealousy and violence in which Nicholson takes refuge in a small grocery store armed with a gun and with hostages is nothing to write home about and even focuses more on what happens around those hours than in the Nicholson himself, who in his performance already accurately outlines some of the grimaces of a patient with hemorrhoids that later made him famous. But the movie, I already said, is quite effective and has its charm, especially in the opening sequences in the dive where Mitchell and the badass thug for which she has left Nicholson (Brett Hasley) are whisteling sweet nothings surrounded of some other guys.

Without lacking from a sociological point of view, although seasoned with humor, the usual morality of the B-series movies of the time that deal with the subject of youth and delinquency, another of its assets is the elegant and beautiful presence as a secondary role of Lynn Cartwright, a lady who would later have a long career in projects of a different kind. Among the presences that one cannot fail to notice in the large casting there is also, although it does not even appear in the credits, the always friendly and usual characteristic of the Corman gang at that time, Bruno VeSota, a guy who always gives a consistent looking to the shots and that, as director, that same year he had done for the "The Brain Eaters". As with Corman everyone did everything, may be someone told him to stay and gave him a phrase so that the tape in its final section would not decay.

In the same way that in moments of tension, the soundtrack resorts to more sandunguero Latin jazz, in the vein of Gillespie's Latinbop, so that things do not go downhill. Those are the kind of things that are appreciated in this type of cinema.

So after watching this movie, another curiosity was sated: I got to see Jack Nicholson's first film and find out if it was any good. Well, it's not too bad and since it's only an hour, not too much time was wasted watching it. Nicholson certainly does well when he becomes desperate enough to hold up a woman with a baby and a middle-aged black man hostage after shooting at a couple of punks who beat him up at the beginning of the movie. Roger Corman was the executive producer only here so there's not much of his creative hand in the finished product though it was interesting seeing his cameo when he briefly talks to the TV reporter before he was going on the air to broadcast the standoff. So on that note, The Cry Baby Killer is worth a look for any Nicholson completists.

You'd know why you'd want to find this film, as it's the ultra-low budget, barely-a-drive-in quickie that features the great Jack Nicholson in his feature debut at the tender age of 21 (he was a mailman at MGM in his previous years in Hollywood). He plays a youth out of control, though also under duress. He's taken a woman and kid hostage, and outside the crowd builds in anticipation as the cops struggle to find a compromise to get everyone safely out. The film is complete with a theme song that just repeats 'cry-cry-cry, cry-baby killer', and in a style that is as polished as a junkyard dog. The story itself, by the way, is told in a way that is so simplistic and with over-acting (or maybe too trying-to-be-realistic acting) that is typical of this kind of un-pretentiously kind of fare. ''

But the reason in the end to reach into the recesses of ebay or elsewhere to find it is to see Nicholson in his early larval stage of a career, and somehow he does make the work fascinating to watch. Obviously not his best by a long-shot, and his first big break in the B-world would come later in Little Shop of Horrors and even later in Easy Rider. However I did like how he was keeping his scenes pretty well grounded, keeping to the situation at hand with all of the confusion and shattered rebellion that's in a youth of his real age. It's almost like checking out the Beatles when they were still the Quarry Men or something- it's not necessarily 'good', but you might be surprised at how it's not really bad either.

"The Cry Baby Killer" (1958) is at best a very mediocre film.

It revolves around 17-year-old Jimmy Wallace who is brutally beaten by a gangster and two of his teen-age punk friends, because one of them wants to move in on Jimmy's girl, Carole. Later, Jimmy shows up at the hangout of the teenage crowd to take Carole away, and challenges one of them , Manny, to a fight. Manny's two buddies move in with brass knuckles, and one of them pulls a pistol, which falls to the ground in the scuffle. Jimmy picks it up and shoots Manny and Al. A police officer orders Jimmy to surrender, but he panics, thinking he killed the pair, and dives into a small storeroom, and holds a man, woman and her baby as hostages.

The premise itself is intriguing but the film simply doesn't deliver in terms of either emotional weight or production value. It is poorly conceived, directed and not the best of films. However, this is Jack Nicholson's feature debut film, and as he would become notorious for in his career, he is nailing every second of his time on screen. Recommended only for film enthusiasts and fans of Jack Nicholson.

I wanted to see THE CRY BABY KILLER since very long (probably 2020) because it's Jack Nicholson's debut and in that period of time he used to look a lot like me. Last October I finally saw it and while I didn't loved it I found it just ok.

Jimmy Wallace (Nicholson) comes in contact with Manny Cole (Brett Halsey) and his gang when he is in a diner and tries to defend his girlfriend. After Manny and his thugs beat him and take his girl, Jimmy goes in the usual hideout of Manny's gang and after stealing a gun Jimmy shoots to Manny's cohorts. Since he's afraid of having shot them he flees in a grocery store that was about to close and takes hostage the clerk, his wife and kid. Police arrives and a large crowd waits outside the store with the police trying to make Jimmy go out, and they'll eventually succedd but it's best if you see the movie for yourselves.

The plot is typical for an exploitation movie of that time but what makes this one unique is not only Nicholson's debut but his performance in that it looks like he was phagocytizing some of his next characters (especially ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and SHINING) and as usual he didn't disappoint. And just for this I'd recommend this.