La escuela del vicio

Mamie Van Doren as somebody's aunt could put a whole new slant on "visiting the relatives". Here her twin gunboats are aimed at no one in particular, and I expect she was added at the last minute to further hype this exploitation exercise. But then this was cutting edge material for 1958 teens-- sassing the teacher, hotrod chickie runs, and maybe a pull on a joint if you could find one. Yeah, this is reefer-madness for the pre-Vietnam Pepsi generation. Never mind that the movie is one-third Blackboard Jungle, one-third Rebel Without a Cause, and the rest sheer Hollywood hokum.

Producer Zugsmith may not have known Leonardo Da Vinci from Leonardo Da Caprio, but he knew how to crowd teens into drive-ins. Then too, lead actor Tamblyn may look more like a cheer-leader than a hoody delinquent, but at least he's not bored with the part. Fast-buck artists like Zugsmith knew how to market these exploitation quickies as timely warnings to parents and teens. But kids weren't fooled. They knew they could see forbidden topics like teens kissing on a bed under the uplifting guise of civic betterment. No, this drive-in special may never have made it into uptown movie houses, but as an artifact of its time, it's more fun than any 10 of that year's dreary A-productions.

Having first read about this '50s juvenile delinquent movie in the book "Cult Movies 2", when I saw a DVD displayed in my local library, I knew I had to check High School Confidential! out. With Russ Tamblyn as a troubled kid going to a new school, Diane Jergens as his potential girlfriend, and John Drew Barrymore as his rival/potential partner in a drug ring, the fireworks that happens is slowly but surely coming but not in the way you think! Mamie Van Doren is a hoot as Tamblyn's "aunt" who puts the moves on him and anyone who's not her husband who's conveniently out of town during most of the picture. There's also former child star, and later Uncle Fester, Jackie Coogan and a star of Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, Jan Sterling, here. And then there's "The Killer", Jerry Lee Lewis, singing the title song on a flatbed truck to get things off to a rousing start. With a young Michael Landon and lots of dated slang that still provide some amusement today along with some car chases and some fights, High School Confidential! might be the most "trippin" movie from the '50s I've seen yet!

This movie is deliciously dated.

The dialogue is outrageous - especially the scene in the classroom when one of the male students talks about Christopher Columbus going to that "deep pool" of the Alantic Ocean with his "non-stop studs" - which now, out of context, sounds more like a line from a gay porno flick instead of a 1950s b-movie (!).

Like many teen romps of the late 50s, the sound track is way cool, with Jerry Lee Lewis doing the opening theme song.

Lots of fun. Mamie Van Doren as always, is a treat. The cast includes a lot of people who were in a bunch of 50s flicks together - Jackie Coogan, Russ Tamblyn, Jan "Female on the Beach" Sterling, etc.

If you like this film, you'll also like Mamie in "Girls Town".

There's not much to be said about High School Confidential, a teen exploitation movie from the end of the fabulous ‘fifties, except that it's hard to think that it wasn't just as laughable upon release as it is today. But some comments on its cast members may be in order:

• Russ Tamblyn was a child star, then primarily a dancer. This `dramatic' role fell to him between his memorable assignments in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and West Side Story. He's not at all bad here (in an badly written and implausible role), but was never able to establish himself as a serious actor, though he continued to work, showing up notably decades later in Twin Peaks.

• John Drew Barrymore had just taken up his middle name to distance himself from his legendary father; in earlier roles (The Big Night, While the City Sleeps), he was billed as John Barrymore, Jr. Here he brings off an eerily precise impersonation of Elvis Presley, speaking both in hillbilly accent and in basso-profundo register. (Alas, he does not sing.) It's clear he inherited the family talent, which he was to squander, because he also inherited the predisposition to chemical experimentation.

• Jan Sterling seemed destined for a bigger career than she ended up with. The high points of her filmography – Billy's Wilder's The Big Carnival/Ace In The Hole being the most impressive of them – were behind her, and she was taking secondary roles to the likes of latter-day Joan Crawford ( in Female on The Beach). Here, as a schoolteacher, she not only does a riff on Eve Arden's Our Miss Brooks character, she even looks like Arden.

• The late ‘fifties were the blazing noon of Mamie Van Doren's fling at playing third-string sexpot (after Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield). All Dagmars and platinum hair, she was rarely called upon to display what might have been a comic talent, visible here in fits and starts. Her role as a married nymphomaniac whose attempts at fulfilment – absent her husband – seemed doomed to disappointment is practically a clone of the part she played in The Beat Generation, a slightly more interesting vehicle that covers much of the same ground as High School Confidential.

High School Confidential remains notable from a view of drug trafficking and the process of addiction that had advanced not a whit since Reefer Madness in the ‘thirties. And of course its view of teen-aged life in the second Eisenhower administration bears not the slightest resemblance to any reality – then or now. That said, it's fun to watch.

"The Blackboard Jungle" had covered somewhat similar territory in a far more respectable way. Not too much about this movie could be called respectable. It does have a fine director in jack Arnold. He gave us, among others, the classic "The Incredible Shrinking Man." It's by no means a bad movie, despite its exploitative nature.

Boyish Russ Tamblyn is an unlikely jive-talking bad guy. John Drew Barrymore, on the other hand, is typecast as the snarling hotshot of this high school before Tamblyn had arrived. Diane Jergens is very good as a troubled student.

Mamie Van Doren is there for the sex appeal. Her character doesn't make much sense, to me anyway, but her name and picture on posters doubtless sold tickets. And Jan Sterling plays a teacher. She is, as always, very good.

The movie is about drugs. I have never been drawn to drugs, though most of my friends were or still are users of pot. To me "High School Confidential" seems at times like a riff on "Reefer Madness": Yes, all drugs can have their downside. However, smoking pot does not automatically, as is suggested here, lead directly to heroin use.

The movie has great Jerry Lee Lewis music. I also like Bill Haley and the Comets' famous contribution ("Rock Around the Clock") to "The Blackboard Jungle.

Had I seen this when I was a teenager, a decade or so after it came out, I wouldn't have understood it. Thankfully, I knew nothing about drugs while in high school. But I'm sure that even in 1958 some schools were overrun with them.

As a force for social change, the movie is questionable. But as an occasionally campybut solid entertainment, it's a gas, man.