A real nothingburger. The penultimate film of the prolifically untalented Edward L. Cahn, going out not with a bang, but with a whimper. (Whom were these tiny atrocities made for? Even Roger Corman had more time & money at his disposal; more attitude in spite of his own shallow skill set. And Corman’s films always had a place as Drive-In ‘second features.’ Did Cahn get the triple-feature slot at inner-city flop house bijoux?) This one, based on a short story by Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling, starts with low-wattage WEST SIDE STORY vibes as a gang of teen toughs rob a music store and trigger the alarm. A cleaning lady stumbles in, gets whacked and the hoods run off in all directions. That ends the fun part of the film as we switch gears from delinquent teens to ADAM-12 patrol cops. (ADAM-12 looks good in comparison.) In spite of yelling STOP, one teen is shot in the back and dies. Why he’s only 14 says the ashen cop. And while the courts may let him off, his conscience won’t. All of this drab, drab, drab; with some truly horrible acting that could give anyone the giggles, before a rushed third act squares things up and justifies the cop’s actions. Of the cast, only Willis Bouchey as the hearty Police Captain is someone you’ll recognize. The lead cop went nowhere fast (so too the actress playing his wife) while his patrol partner died young a few years later from a heart attack. A sharper script would have stayed focused on those streetwise kids*, all dreaming of roles they never got and soon grew out of.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Teen toughs were primed for lampoon as far back as Jerry Lewis in THE DELICATE DELINQUENT/’57, his first without Dean Martin. Awful as it is, like so many Lewis pics, there’s one standout scene, here fortunately it’s the opening so there’s no waiting! And, wouldn’t you know, the sequence might well have been titled INCIDENT IN AN ALLEY . . . With A Garbage Can.
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