Here’s another classic Hot Rod / Juvenile Delinquent film of the 1950’s again with blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren. This time instead of a stolen car ring, this time an undercover cop comes to a high school to break up a drug ring!
There’s certain things about JD movies that have to be accepted (suspension of disbelief) before watching. First off, the protagonist may be pushing thirty, but nobody in class would ever guess he’s a ‘narc’ despite his five o’clock shadow. The other thing is that smoking a joint will quickly slide into shooting heroin, at least in ‘High School Confidential’.
Tough young Tony has just transferred to his new high school, and immediately stirs up trouble. Insulting teachers, carrying a switchblade, even stealing another guys parking spot! The cool kids all figure he’s one of them. Tony tells everyone that he’s grazing, which apparently was 50’s slang for looking to buy weed.
He meets up with the local hot rod club / drug pushers the ‘Wheelers and Dealers’ and wants in on the action. He buys 100 joints from the crew but tells them he wants to buy pounds of heroin from their distributor Mr. A. Nope…nothing alarming about a guy nobody’s ever met before wanting to move up the drug dealing food chain on Day 1.
There’s a funny scene where Tony hides the dope inside his hubcap, then drag races against the ‘Wheelers and Dealers’ until the police show up. He almost gets away, but accidentally bumps into a curb which pops his hubcap off and drops a plastic bag full of weed right in front of the cops. Good thing Tony is actually an undercover cop!
As with all hot rod movies, the cars are the stars, and Tony drives around in a 1958 Chrysler Imperial Crown convertible which was an extremely expensive car for a high-schooler. The other delinquents make do with their Ford Model A hot rods.
This movie makes being a high-school druggie look so cool (except for the part where one girl can’t go swimming with her friends because of all the needle marks on her arm). Jerry Lee Lewis shows up on the back of a flatbed truck playing a live set of his latest hit song, there’s a local hang-out where the kids all go to dance after school, and everyone has a cool car!
The movie even shoehorns in Mamie Van Doren, the platinum blond bombshell. She would have been 27 or so during filming, so rather than a high-school senior, she’s cast as the over-sexed aunt that protagonist Tony lives, surely resulting in years of therapy to overcome an Oedipus complex.
The movie is so bad it’s good. Teenage girls moping around the cafeteria at lunch, strung out like junkies because they couldn’t afford another “hit” of marijuana. The filmmakers make no differentiation between weed and heroin; an addict is an addict. This one might seem a little heavy handed in today’s world where everyone’s grandma is on THC eadibles.
But the cars really were cool.
I WAS GOING TO SAY. cone-boob, smoking blonde could NOT be a student even in that era of suspension of disbelief being as ubiquitous as oxygen.
I think she was held back a year. That’s why she’s bigger than the other kids.
.
In all seriousness though, that lady was 26 during filming. I had teachers in high school that were younger.
I think 26 was about the youngest and they were guys and they liked the high school girls. another era but still hella inappropriate.
I’ve watched so many Hot Rod / Juvenile Delinquent 50s movies this year. Just like 90210 or Happy Days, none of these actors was the right age.