High School Confidential!

Having first read about this '50s juvenile delinquent movie in the book "Cult Movies 2", when I saw a DVD displayed in my local library, I knew I had to check High School Confidential! out. With Russ Tamblyn as a troubled kid going to a new school, Diane Jergens as his potential girlfriend, and John Drew Barrymore as his rival/potential partner in a drug ring, the fireworks that happens is slowly but surely coming but not in the way you think! Mamie Van Doren is a hoot as Tamblyn's "aunt" who puts the moves on him and anyone who's not her husband who's conveniently out of town during most of the picture. There's also former child star, and later Uncle Fester, Jackie Coogan and a star of Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, Jan Sterling, here. And then there's "The Killer", Jerry Lee Lewis, singing the title song on a flatbed truck to get things off to a rousing start. With a young Michael Landon and lots of dated slang that still provide some amusement today along with some car chases and some fights, High School Confidential! might be the most "trippin" movie from the '50s I've seen yet!

There's not much to be said about High School Confidential, a teen exploitation movie from the end of the fabulous ‘fifties, except that it's hard to think that it wasn't just as laughable upon release as it is today. But some comments on its cast members may be in order:

• Russ Tamblyn was a child star, then primarily a dancer. This `dramatic' role fell to him between his memorable assignments in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and West Side Story. He's not at all bad here (in an badly written and implausible role), but was never able to establish himself as a serious actor, though he continued to work, showing up notably decades later in Twin Peaks.

• John Drew Barrymore had just taken up his middle name to distance himself from his legendary father; in earlier roles (The Big Night, While the City Sleeps), he was billed as John Barrymore, Jr. Here he brings off an eerily precise impersonation of Elvis Presley, speaking both in hillbilly accent and in basso-profundo register. (Alas, he does not sing.) It's clear he inherited the family talent, which he was to squander, because he also inherited the predisposition to chemical experimentation.

• Jan Sterling seemed destined for a bigger career than she ended up with. The high points of her filmography – Billy's Wilder's The Big Carnival/Ace In The Hole being the most impressive of them – were behind her, and she was taking secondary roles to the likes of latter-day Joan Crawford ( in Female on The Beach). Here, as a schoolteacher, she not only does a riff on Eve Arden's Our Miss Brooks character, she even looks like Arden.

• The late ‘fifties were the blazing noon of Mamie Van Doren's fling at playing third-string sexpot (after Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield). All Dagmars and platinum hair, she was rarely called upon to display what might have been a comic talent, visible here in fits and starts. Her role as a married nymphomaniac whose attempts at fulfilment – absent her husband – seemed doomed to disappointment is practically a clone of the part she played in The Beat Generation, a slightly more interesting vehicle that covers much of the same ground as High School Confidential.

High School Confidential remains notable from a view of drug trafficking and the process of addiction that had advanced not a whit since Reefer Madness in the ‘thirties. And of course its view of teen-aged life in the second Eisenhower administration bears not the slightest resemblance to any reality – then or now. That said, it's fun to watch.

Mamie Van Doren as somebody's aunt could put a whole new slant on "visiting the relatives". Here her twin gunboats are aimed at no one in particular, and I expect she was added at the last minute to further hype this exploitation exercise. But then this was cutting edge material for 1958 teens-- sassing the teacher, hotrod chickie runs, and maybe a pull on a joint if you could find one. Yeah, this is reefer-madness for the pre-Vietnam Pepsi generation. Never mind that the movie is one-third Blackboard Jungle, one-third Rebel Without a Cause, and the rest sheer Hollywood hokum.

Producer Zugsmith may not have known Leonardo Da Vinci from Leonardo Da Caprio, but he knew how to crowd teens into drive-ins. Then too, lead actor Tamblyn may look more like a cheer-leader than a hoody delinquent, but at least he's not bored with the part. Fast-buck artists like Zugsmith knew how to market these exploitation quickies as timely warnings to parents and teens. But kids weren't fooled. They knew they could see forbidden topics like teens kissing on a bed under the uplifting guise of civic betterment. No, this drive-in special may never have made it into uptown movie houses, but as an artifact of its time, it's more fun than any 10 of that year's dreary A-productions.

For what it is, a B-movie of the first order, I loved this clunker about marijuana and high school students. Acting skills required for the roles are minimal, nor do any of the teenagers even look like they're under 25 years old. Russ Tamblyn, for all his trying .... well, he should have remained a dancer. Jan Sterling gives an OK performance as the teacher, but it's far below her standards. Mamie Van Doren of the bleach-blond hair and prodigious balcony provides some completely unintended comic relief in the role of the somewhat whorish aunt. The ghastly script only adds to the triumph of this cliché riddled classic. The fight scenes are so fake as to be seen from a mile away. All the young women look like they have some kind of cone-shaped things in their brassieres, according to the fashion of the times. A "must see" for all B-movie lovers.

Perhaps the coolest movie ever made! It's worth watching for the lingo alone, you sound me? And it's a movie with a lesson... "You flake around with the weed and you're gonna end up using hard stuff!" Yes, it's just that cheesey.

Hot-shot Tony Baker (Russ Tamblyn) is the new kid at Santo Bello High School and he makes everyone aware of his arrival. He muscles his way into the Wheelers & Dealers, run by J.I. Colridge (John Drew Barrymoore - Drew's dad) and not only tries to push him out of the picture, but also goes after his girl, Joan Staples (Diane Jergens).

Tony lets it be known that he's looking to "graze on some grass", but not just a few "sticks", he wants five pounds! Not only that but he also wants to score some coke, H, goofballs and caps. He is soon humbled when he finds he has to score 100 sticks from J.I. at the big race. While haggling for the weed Tony learns that J.I. is pushing for the mysterious Mr. A. (Jackie Coogan). Tony wants to meet Mr. A. so he can score a kilo of heroin. Eventually, a meeting is set up between Tony and Mr. A.

School teacher Miss Williams (Jan Sterling) takes a liking to Tony and sets out to save him from himself. Tony takes a liking to his teacher, but with different intentions.

The comedy (unintentionally) abounds in this 50s flick. Check out Barrymoore's hep-cat slang rendition of Columbus' voyage to America or the Beat Poetess' poetry reading or Michael Landon as a dorky student Tony mocks, or the slinky, Mamie VanDoren as Tony's drunken, slutty aunt or the cop explaining the difference between a real cigarette and marijuana.

I could go on for days about this movie, but instead, I'm going to stop writing and pop the tape in my VCR and watch it for the five billionth time. I suggest you do the same.