This Rebel Breed

This is yet another exploitational release from Something Weird Video. This particular DVD features a double-feature--this film and "Murder in Mississippi".

"Black Rebels" (also known as "The Rebel Breed") is about juvenile delinquents--in particular, kids who resort to racially motivated crimes. To combat this problem, the cops send two recent police academy graduates to a local high school to pose as students. However, the guys playing 'students' were 27 and 23 years of age! In fact, none of these teens looked close to being teenager. And, to make it worse, one of these pseudo-teens looks silly, as he's supposed to play a guy who is a biracial Latino--but this effect was achieved by painting his skin--it's quite obvious. And, oddly, some times he is a lot more black-looking than others!!

Despite the silly casting, the film doesn't pull a lot of punches--at least when it comes to sex. This movie, despite claiming to address serious social ills and sporting some real honest-to-goodness actors, is pure sleaze from start to finish. Under the guise of 'education', the film makers were able to insert (perhaps a bad choice of words) a lot of material that normally would have never been allowed in films due to the production code that was still in effect in 1960. Over-age students groping breasts, wiggling breasts of girls wearing just a push-up bra and panties as well as lots of sexual innuendos make this an interesting film--even if the quality is suspect...very, very suspect! It's pure trash--but the sort of trash you just can't stop watching!! Plus, at the 26 minute mark (to begin with) you get to see a WHOLE LOT MORE of some of the young ladies!! In fact, it's clear that this nudity was added later to spice up the movie--as it is edited into the film poorly and with no context. Plus, the film I watched was five minutes longer than the running time listed on IMDb. I just can't imagine a lot of these actors willingly appearing in such a salacious film.

A couple actresses to look out for is a young and quite pretty Rita Moreno in the female lead (age 29). This is before her breakout appearance in "Westside Story" (for which she won an Oscar) and I am sure she never would have made "This Rebel Breed" if she'd done the other movie first!! The other, in a much smaller role, is Dyan Cannon (23)--playing a girl named 'Wiggles'. Pretty subtle, huh?! Fortunately for their careers, they kept their clothes on throughout.

So is it worth seeing apart from the value as sleaze or because of curiosity in seeing Moreno and Cannon? Well, if you are looking for a good film, keep on looking. But, like a good old train wreck, there is just something about this film that keeps you looking. It's certainly bad, but funny at the same time. My score of 2 is because of the low quality of the film overall. But entertainment-wise (for bad film buffs), this one gets a 9!

By the way, this film was co-directed by Richard L. Bare. No, despite the name, he was not a porn director but became famous for directing such wholesome family fare as "Green Acres" and "Petticoat Junction"!

My favorite line in the film--"Son, get yourself a haircut...before someone makes a pass at you". I also loved the 37 minute mark where the two guys are wiggling about in a strange manner with topless ladies while a third lady has their back to them--dancing the Twist! What's with THAT?! Who thought up this crazy scene?!

It's a drive-in exploitation movie which tries to say something about toleration, as Police Lieutenant Gerald Mohr sends in a man undercover to try bust up a middle-class marijuana ring, and pick up some evidence on who killed Don Eltner. They've got Mexican Richard Laurier in jail, but he didn't do it. Meanwhile, blackfaced Mark Damon tries to get close to Eitner's sister, Rita Moreno.

It's the Los Angeles, suburban response to the urban THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, from the other side. It's a spiffy grindhouse movie, with lots of young lovelies -- it's Dyan Cannon's second film role, but while director Richard Bare and DP Monroe Askins aren't afraid to show you the real slums, there's a certain air of trying to overstate the case visually, particularly with the two-shot portraits, with one person standing downscreen to the left, and the other upscreen and to the right that seems trite after a while. That sense of making the point first and the story later gives the movie a lecturing tone that prevents it from being great.

"This Rebel Breed" is a sordid and solid, racially-charged black & white juvie melodrama about two young detectives, Frank (Mark Damon), a half-black / half-Mexican, and Don (Douglas Hume), a white, sent to high school on an undercover mission. They will infiltrate - or, at least, attempt to infiltrate - separate youth gangs in order to expose the miscreants behind various shady goings-on. Frank buys trouble through his attraction to the pretty Lola (Rita Moreno, an Oscar winner two years later for the film version of "West Side Story"). You see, Lolas' brother Manuel (Richard Laurier) is a very angry young man who hates anybody who isn't Mexican.

This is engagingly trashy stuff, with a straightforward and entertaining plot. We have characters indulging in contraband, violence, and partying, while they're accompanied by a lively soundtrack. It's all played to the hilt by an attractive and talented cast. In addition to the endearing Moreno, we have Dyan (spelled Diane here) Cannon as "Wiggles", the girlfriend of the films' main antagonist. Dyan figures in what has to be a pretty unexpected revelation. And boy, is our main antagonist quite a piece of work: an unsubtle sleaze who gets young black kids to smoke grass. His name is Buck Madison, and as played by an actor named Richard Rust, he's the kind of guy whose comeuppance you eagerly anticipate. Other familiar faces such as Gerald Mohr (as the police lieutenant supervising Frank and Don), Jay Novello (as Lola and Manuels' father), Al Freeman Jr., and Hari Rhodes also turn up.

Despite possessing some winning ingredients for fans of this kind of thing, this wasn't as big a success as the producer, William Rowland, really wanted. So he re-released it to grindhouses and drive-ins five years later, with some newly shot softcore scenes (in which Hume reprised his role) incongruously added. This re-release version is known as "Black Rebels", and runs about six minutes longer. Both versions are available on DVD.

Seven out of 10.