I Accuse My Parents

I accuse my parents is a film that definitely has not stood the test of time. Blaming one's parents for your criminal ways is a very out-of-date idea, and the whole premise is silly. There are people out there who have grown up in abusive homes and managed to make things work out fine for themselves.

Don't watch this unless you're looking at the MST3K version. In the end credits they mention that this film was sent to our fighting forces in Europe. They probably used it as a torture device.

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.

I'll be up front with you; I've never seen this movie in its original unadulterated form. I think if I had, I would found it a harmless (if slightly dull) melodramatic "message" film.

The truth is, I've only seen this movie as an MST3000 episode, and as such, it is one the funniest and most entertaining movies I've ever seen! Young Robert Lowell (the poet?) as Jimmy is endearingly dim-witted, and Mary Beth Hughes is charmingly wooden as his love interest. (I like her singing, by the way). But the clincher here is George Lloyd as Al, the kindly gravel-voiced father figure and church-going diner owner who tries to set our hero straight (good luck!). When Al's scenes come up, I rewind and watch over and over and over...

Early in their career, songwriters Jay Livingston & Ray Evans wrote the laughable "Are You Happy in Your Work?" (Do you never, ever shirk?). I suppose this makes the movie notable to trivia buffs, but the film and song are not really worth the effort. Thankfully Jay & Ray went on to write much better songs ("Buttons and Bows", "Silver Bells", "Que Sera, Sera", "Mona Lisa", etc.) for much better films.

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.