Jail Bait

A morality play a la Reefer Madness, with guns instead of grass. Marilyn Gregor (Dolores Fuller), a fifties good-girl, is bailing out her brother Don (Clancy Malone), who's been run in for gun possession. Although Don's father is a prestigious plastic surgeon, Don Jr. has renounced this respectable profession in favor of a life of crime. He's pretty incorrigible if he's got a gun in his hand so after Marilyn drives him home, he gets a revolver from a hollowed out book to replace the one the cops confiscated and goes out to meet his henchman, Vic Brady (Timothy Farrell), at a downtown watering hole. It seems the two have one last caper to commit before bedtime: they hold up an office for $23,000 in theater payroll checks. Unfortunately, the holdup goes wrong; Don kills a security guard/retired cop and Vic tags a fleeing secretary but doesn't kill her. The cops arrive but Don and Vic shake them after a languid car chase that (maybe because Ed Wood forgot to get a shooting permit and didn't want anyone to know he was making a movie) obeys all traffic laws. They're safe for the time being but the secretary they failed to kill is a living witness so word gets out soon enough that Don is a cop killer. Choked by remorse, Don visits his father's office and Doctor Gregor convinces him to surrender to the authorities. But Vic catches Don there, takes him back to Vic's hideout, and after a brief altercation shoots him dead. Vic and his girlfriend Loretta (Theodora Thurman) trick Doctor Gregor the plastic surgeon into giving Vic a new face to escape the law, using for leverage a claim that they are holding Don hostage. When Doctor Gregor discovers that Don is already dead, he gets revenge by surreptitiously giving Vic Don's face. The police identify Vic as Don, the cop killer, and kill him after a quick and bloodless shootout. Justice having been done, we can all shake our heads ruefully and go home.

An essentially unremarkable cops-and-robbers potboiler, Jail Bait is pretty good evidence that Ed Wood gets far too much credit for making bad films. Though Wood's dialogue delivers the occasional trademark nonsequitur-when a police inspector (Lyle Talbot) explains to Marilyn that "carrying a gun can be dangerous business," she rejoins that "building a skyscraper" can be dangerous business, too, thus demonstrating that she's missed his point entirely-by and large this movie is marginally competent. I wouldn't make such a point out of this except that Ed Wood's "badness" is the key component of his continued notoriety; I guess I'm suggesting that anyone who's seen a movie as wretched as Paranoia or Blood Sisters (to name two of about four billion examples) should be unimpressed by Wood's supposed ineptitude.

The movie is most interesting when it's suggesting that our free wills and capacity to make decisions abandon us in the face of relatively banal stimuli-in this case, the condition of holding a gun in his hand is enough to make Don take leave of his senses and start shooting everyone in sight. Several times he insists that "I never thought it would come to this," just as the dope smokers of Reefer Madness seem to watch on helplessly as their own lives go up in bubbly, gurgling lung-smoke just because they couldn't see the long-term peril in a puff of marijuana. Doctor Gregor provides the obligatory Freudian theory for Don's miscreantism-turns out Dad spoiled Don as a child and the little fellow also suffered from an absent mother, "God rest her soul"-but this is largely an afterthought. The more Doctor Gregor and Marilyn sacrifice themselves for Don, the more we realize his upbringing was just fine; he simply can't think straight when he has a pistol in his hand. When Doc and Marilyn are preparing to meet with Vic for the first time the movie seems to consider pursuing this idea seriously-Marilyn, wanting only to protect Don, drops another in an apparently interminable supply of handguns into her purse-but once there the gun never resurfaces so the movie never makes good on its promise to transform Marilyn into a murderous fiend once she decides to pack heat.

Don't be fooled by the tagline-underage girls are not the "jail bait" of this movie's title. Guns are. Guns. Get it?

First of all, let me say that the title Jail Bait has to do with a gun and not under-age sex. This is one of Ed Wood's classics. Yes, it's horrible and the movie is so cheap it's funny. However, it's not as "good" as Plan 9.

Things to watch for:

The doctor's office. His desk is huge. When ever anyone wants to sit down, the have to squeeze between a plant and chair.

The music - it's horrible and ALWAYS playing. Even when someones parking a car the suspenseful guitar music begins strumming.

The doc performs plastic surgery in a guys living room! On his couch! At gun point!

Steve Reeves first movie - he takes his shirt off to prove it's him.

Worth the rental. The scenes in the theater (with the exception of a horrible and really kind of shocking black-face act thrown in for no reason at all) made me laugh out loud.

This movie is basically about a son of a famous plastic surgeon who causes trouble by carrying a gun and eventually ends up killing somebody when he was with his partner in crime. Obviously, his family becomes worried about him. Another one of those "rich kid gone bad" stories. Basically, all the acting in this movie is bad except for some detective. Delores Fuller stars as the kid's brother, and she had a pretty bad performance (at least she's good looking, though,) But still, the bad acting adds to the unintentional humor you will find with this. Also, Timothy Farrell stars as partner in crime Vic Brady, and his performance is the funniest especially after he says lines like "let's unwraps the Christmas presents and see the presents inside." (Tim would later star in a terrible movie, The Violent Years, another "rich kid gone bad story") Other lines include "plastic surgery can be strenuous and very, very complicating" and "carrying a gun can be dangerous business, miss." Other humor in this film are included in the scenes themselves. When you see the two thieves robbing a safe, you will see a picture of a gingerbread man on the wall for absolutely no reason. In addition, you'll also see a stupid dance sequence (I saw the director's cut) You should also watch out for this annoying guitar theme that is played throughout the entire movie.

My overall opinion though is that this is an entertaining movie because it was so bad (not to mention the obvious ending) It really didn't bore me as much as other trash flicks. It also should be watched since the director ,Ed Wood, is only known for Plan 9, Glen or Glenda, etc. You should really check this out if you're in the mood for something different.

None of Ed Wood Jnr's movies are not what I deem great, however I also don't consider any of them among the worst movies of all time or him the worst director. There are better written, made and acted movies out there, but no matter how bad they are they are kind of like guilty pleasures. I do prefer Plan 9 from Outer Space, Bride of the Monster and Glen and Glenda over Jail Bait, but Jail Bait is at least better than Night of the Ghouls, Orgy of the Dead and especially The Sinister Urge. That is my opinion of course. The ending is huge fun, obvious but it does have to be seen to be believed. Jail Bait while having a lot of continuity errors is also one of Wood's better-looking movies, the camera work is not as static and the sets not as wobbly. There is much that is really terrible though, especially the music which is very repetitive and cheesy, it also gets far too much very quickly. The dialogue is truly horrendous as well, though I admit I did bust a gut from laughing at some of the howlers. The story is thankfully more coherent than the likes of Orgy of the Dead and also not as deadly dull as The Sinister Urge, however it is rather sluggish and often illogical, the ending is the highlight and where things really liven up. The acting is really amateurish as well, the best is Herbert Rawlinson while the rest are as stiff as a robot. Steve Reeves does have sex appeal, but it doesn't disguise his very bland acting or that his shirtless scene felt out of place. In conclusion, terrible but somewhat entertaining. Even more entertaining actually is the facts behind the movie, they make for a fascinating read. 3/10 Bethany Cox

'Jail Bait', directed by the legendary Ed Wood, is an enjoyably bad attempt at Film Noir on a shoestring budget. The cast includes Lyle Talbot, Dolores Fuller and Timothy Farrell from Wood's classic 'Glen Or Glenda', as well as a very early appearance by Steve Reeves. Talbot once again plays a kindly cop, but this time Farrell is on the other side of the law, the nasty Vic Brady. Brady has corrupted Fuller's brother Don (Clancy Malone) the middle class son of a world renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Boris Gregor (Herbert Rawlinson). We first see Don being bailed out by his sister Marilyn (Dolores Fuller) after being caught carrying an unlicensed firearm. Despite his sister's concern and a stern lecture from Ins. Johns (Talbot), he continues to associate with small time crook Vic Brady. A robbery gone wrong results in the death of a Night Watchman. Don's conscience gets the better of him and he intends to give himself up, but Brady has other ideas... ideas which involve Dr. Gregor's skills as a plastic surgeon. The combination of Wood's trademark lousy dialogue and the stilted performances of the actors (especially Malone and Fuller) with Farrell's hammy Vic Brady and the nutty denouement make 'Jail Bait' a lot of fun to watch.