I Accuse My Parents

I almost called this review "I Accuse My Parents... of NOTHING!" Looking back, that wouldn't have been such a bad choice either. Though it's certainly true that many kids from broken homes wind up with lives of crime, even Wally and Beaver Cleaver could've wound up in the mess the main character ended up in.

Jimmy is on trail for manslaughter and accuses his parents of leading him to a life of crime. His parents are drunks, and his dad is a gambler. The worst thing you can say about them is that they're a little embarrassing. It's not like they're beating the living sh*t out of him on a regular basis, or selling his ass to perverts on the street so they can maintain their smack habits or anything like that. Nevertheless, he wants to tell himself and everyone else that they're pillars of the community, and wrote a glowing essay on the benefits of his parents, which is proved to be complete BS when Mom shows up drunk to the kid's graduation planning committee.

So Jimmy gets a job selling shoes, and one of his first customers is a girl with a job as a lounge club singer with ties to the mob. He falls for the girl, and she falls for him, but he doesn't know about the illegal activities of her boss... that is until his boss makes him a wheel-man for some of his crimes. The big boss makes his girlfriend break up with him, and sends a couple of goons after him, so he skips town, and actually tried to pull a robbery at some local greasy spoon. The boss of that place knows what's going on and risks his ass to give the kid a free meal, a job, and a place to stay in exchange for attending church.

Ironically, it's his meeting with greasy spoon owner that gets him in more trouble with the law than the mobsters. Regardless, the whole point is that Jimmy is actually a half-way decent kid who got mixed up with the wrong crowd through no fault of his own, or his drunken neglectful parents, despite the premise of this long-winded ephemeral film. If there were any REAL justice, he would've gotten off on the grounds of self-defense. Luckily a good 49 years later, the cast and crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000 had enough sense to riff on this lame-ass flick. Thank God, or whoever for that.

This film is one of those "message" films from the 1940s. Produced by PRC, one of the cheapest of the B pifcute studios, this film premise is that parents had better take more of an interest in their children's lives, otherwise your child might find himself involved in uderworld sumggling rings and commit murder.

The title of the picture is poor, for no matter how you view this film, the parents of the lead character have no more to do with his downfall then you or I.

This was one of those cheapie B films made to fill the lower half of a double bill.

This isn't nearly as bad as typical MST fodder. Sure, the plot is melodramatic and ludicrous, but no more so than a lot of "troubled youth" movies of the time. Sure, the musical numbers are uninspired, but you have to give them credit for trying. A lot of times the "MST Effect" makes people assume any movie used on the show is terrible, but it isn't so. This one isn't great by any means, but it's reasonably competently made and has its charms. So lighten up, see?

The fact that "I Accuse My Parents" is a bad film shouldn't at all be surprising. After all, it's made by one of the cheapest of the so-called 'Poverty Row' studios of the 1940s==where entire scripts NEVER were bought for more than a few hundred dollars! Also, with an exploitation title like this, it sure sounds like a recipe for dreck.

The film begins with a trial. A young man is accused of manslaughter. In an insanely unrealistic moment, the judge asks the accused to come to the front of the room and talk about his life story. At first, it's all about how his childhood sucked because his parents were both self-involved jerks (hence the title), but so many of his actions seem to have little to do with his upbringing and more to do with that he's a total idiot! To earn some extra money, he goes to work as a courier for a mobster--and having absolutely no idea that he's doing anything illegal! Think about it--he gets paid huge amounts of money to do 'odd jobs' at all hours and he isn't suspicious! Anyway, but the end of his long story, the young man once again asserts that it's pretty much his parents' fault--at which point the judge summarily decides on his fate--with no deliberations, no additional testimony...nothing! And then, what follows, is the judge's message to the parents! Uggh...it's really pretty dumb. However, I must admit that despite being pure corn and bad script writing, it was, in an odd way, entertaining...yet still quite bad. For bad movie buffs, this sort of silly sermonizing and bad writing is exactly what they are looking for--and I can't recommend it enough for those who occasionally like a bad film. Dopey but easy to like.

Come on. Seriously. Who actually said that this movie would be a good idea? What idiot sat in a writing room and said "Hey! I know! A kid accuses his parents! For his lame crimes that he committed after gaining really weak mob ties!" And who said "Hey! I like it!" Yes, Jimmy is pitiful. And yes, he writes a dang fine essay (full of lies). But a angst-ridden teenager and a deceitful essay do not a good movie make. I cannot possibly imagine watching this movie without MST3K. It would be unbearable, especially the awkward singing numbers. I really enjoy the scene where Kitty and Jimmy meet for the first time when he is cleaning the window of the shoe store. That wonderful bit of classic cinematic romance goes on for about...10 minutes. What is going on there?? Why doesn't she just GO IN?? Come on, Kitty. Although she is not a bad actress (can't say as much for Jimmy), there is no chemistry at all between those two. It's like negative chemistry. My advice: stay far away from this movie if you don't see Joel and the bots in the corner. They make it a thousand times more enjoyable.