The Party Crashers

In THE PARTY CRASHERS, Twig Webster (Mark Damon) runs with a rough group of sportscar enthusiasts. For "kicks", he and his fellow "JDs" like to "crash" the swinging parties of the upper crust.

On one such foray, Twig, while loading up on fancy sandwiches and expensive booze, sets his sights on the lovely Barbara Nickerson (Connie Stevens). Violence erupts when Twig and company start a drunken brawl.

Barbara, smitten with Twig's "animal" charms, decides that he's the cure for her high society blues. Her current boyfriend is now yesterday's meatloaf.

This movie takes us along for Barbara's walk on "the wrong side of the tracks". Her thrill-seeking could be her undoing, especially when she and her new friends crash the wrong sort of party!

Ms. Stevens is quite good in her spoiled, rebellious role, as is Damon. The various parents are fun too, including Denver Pyle as the wise Mr. Bickford.

Recommended for all lovers of enjoyable, moralistic fare...

Middle-class teen troublemakers stir things up with the country club set; their bad boy leader (Mark Damon) is hot-tempered--likely due to mom-and-dad issues--but one of the rich girls (Connie Stevens), bored with her privileged life, finds him alluring. Rather nasty variant of "Rebel Without a Cause" and its ilk is otherwise well-acted and written, with the threat of an Army draft hanging over the boys. The three screenwriters--Bernard Girard (who also directed), William Alland, and Dan Lundberg--steer clear of the usual j.d clichés, although their misty-eyed, semi-happy ending is groaner (someone here got cold feet). The cast includes Frances Farmer and Robert (Bobby) Driscoll as mother and son (this was the final feature film for both); however, Stevens as the suburban princess/daddy's girl is the standout (never resorting to Lolita-isms or rich girl bitchery, the newcomer is a natural, showing incredible self-assurance). ** from ****

Nicely produced, smoothly directed production from Paramount Studios, and a cut above the usual teen movies of the day (1958). Twig's (Damon) a hell-raising pack leader, getting kicks from crashing parties with his buddies. Good girl Babs (Stevens) is attracted to him despite her strait-laced rather meek boyfriend, Josh (Driscoll). Whether she will stay with the conventional Josh or risk a less conventional tie-up with the fun-loving Twig carries much of the plot. At the same time, there are subplots involving the parents of the three youngsters, where we supposedly get insight into the kids' respective behaviors. Naturally, by 50's standards, Twig has the most dysfunctional home life, while good boy Josh has the most stable, with Babs' parents somewhere in between.

It's an interesting cast, as other reviewers helpfully point out, but shouldn't overlook the exotic Doris Dowling (Twig's slutty mother). She of the wicked eyes had a promising career in noirs before moving to Italy (1947) to appear in several neo-realist classics before moving back. For sure, once you see her, you don't forget. Here she's perfectly cast with a decidedly unconventional look. Also, be sure to catch director Girard's imaginative camera work that spins with the wild dancing of the first party crashing. Such unconventional technique was unusual for the time, and rivets us to the mounting frenzy that we know has to end badly.

All in all, the movie's well-done, but very much a product of its time. Then too, if possible, catch this film along with its Damon-Stevens companion Young and Dangerous (1957). Between them, you get a good glimpse of 50's social norms, before the eruption of the 60's counter-culture.

"The Party Crashers" doesn't waste a lot of time on drag races or fights and romance at the soda fountain or even teen rebellion, though these are certainly elements. It's an intergenerational semi-horror tale, that focuses its outrage on that era's older generation and carries this into the realm of the diabolical. The teens in this aren't very nice, but their parents and the rest of the suburban neo-affluent, post-war 30s to 50s crowd are a hell of a lot more scary.

The main young delinquent is played by handsome young Mark Damon, a charismatic young thug who leads fellow bored teens into the title weekend pastime, that of invading teen parties around the city and turning them into orgies of violence and vandalism. At his opening conquest, he captures the romantic interest of a good-girl-itching-to-go-bad, played by gorgeous young Connie Stevens. Connie uses emotional blackmail to drag along her square and decent boyfriend (the legendary ill-fated child star Bobby Driscoll, in his last role before wandering off to an early heroin death in an abandoned NYC tenement) into Mark's whirlwind of crazy kicks.

Along the way we get to know these kids' parents. Connie's a confused spoiled brat, with an indulgent but ineffectual father and a successful writer mother completely obsessed with her own career. Bobby's parents are kindly but socially clueless -- post-lobotomy Francis Farmer, also in her last role, plays his mother and there's a quiet poignancy to the scenes these two lost and tragic actors play together, that is downright heartbreaking. Then there's Mark and his home life, and suddenly we're more than aware of what has turned this kid into the monster he is. His father is a staggering drunk, drowning beneath the contempt of both his damaged son and evil wife (Doris Dowling, in the performance of her career), a hedonistic shrew who is both verbally and physically abusive, and explicitly exhibits incestuous yearnings. (You will truly not BELIEVE that this film was made, and released, in 1958!)

Though the film ends on a rather twee note that reflects the 1950s cautious obsession of playing to the censors, the final third leading up to it is freaky and ahead of its time. Mark, who has used his charms to entrap Connie and Bobby into his seductive delinquent thrill ride, picks the wrong party to crash, with horrific results.

On that (unrevealed) note, the film has a lot more in common with 1966's "The Chase", with its air of drunken angry "lost youth" hysteria, than the actual "angry youth" drive-in flicks of its period, and no wonder it's forgotten. 50s kids, to whom this film was marketed, preferred the focus to be on themselves, no matter how much they were demonized. "The Party Crashers" is a coldly adult movie, with its juvenile delinquency being matter of social cause and effect, rather than angry free choice on the teen's part, and that was likely a little bitter of a pill to swallow.

At any rate, the HIGHEST recommendation for fellow fans of unusual mid-century cinema.

This was a movie that I had seen as a youngster, when I was around the age of twelve. The story was about a bunch of older teenagers (a lot older than me at the time) that got their kicks by "crashing" parties, in other words, upsetting others' enjoyment for their own personal satisfaction. Not to divulge, but I will say they finally crashed a party run by people old enough to be their parents, or by folks that knew how to really have a good time (for themselves). All of a sudden, the "crashers" seemed to behave like little elflings... It's a true reflection on behavior. Nothing has changed... this movie still makes a lot of social sense. Try to find it.