The Cry Baby Killer

This is a movie that you can watch despite its non existent scenario and dialogs, because it is well paced and producer Roger Corman, in an early effort, makes every dollar count in production value.

But of course one checks it out because it is Jack Nicholson's debut movie. And yes, one already didn't have Jack Nicholson's voice, and yes, one already didn't have Jack Nicholson's face, but, yes, one could have easily acted as badly as Jack Nicholson then. Knowing what was to come next, this makes it worth an idle glance.

Jack Nicholson made his debut on the big screen with this acceptable thriller from the series B, subsection youth and violence, produced by Roger Corman, in which he shares the cast with Carolyn Mitchell, a beautiful and young actress totally forgotten, who shortly after the end of filming would become nothing more and nothing less than the fourth wife of Mickey Rooney before passing away tragically.

Virtually the entire career of the director, Jus Addiss, was focused on television, and that is something that shows for good in the planning and staging of the film, with a sustained rhythm and without ups and downs. The youthful story of love, jealousy and violence in which Nicholson takes refuge in a small grocery store armed with a gun and with hostages is nothing to write home about and even focuses more on what happens around those hours than in the Nicholson himself, who in his performance already accurately outlines some of the grimaces of a patient with hemorrhoids that later made him famous. But the movie, I already said, is quite effective and has its charm, especially in the opening sequences in the dive where Mitchell and the badass thug for which she has left Nicholson (Brett Hasley) are whisteling sweet nothings surrounded of some other guys.

Without lacking from a sociological point of view, although seasoned with humor, the usual morality of the B-series movies of the time that deal with the subject of youth and delinquency, another of its assets is the elegant and beautiful presence as a secondary role of Lynn Cartwright, a lady who would later have a long career in projects of a different kind. Among the presences that one cannot fail to notice in the large casting there is also, although it does not even appear in the credits, the always friendly and usual characteristic of the Corman gang at that time, Bruno VeSota, a guy who always gives a consistent looking to the shots and that, as director, that same year he had done for the "The Brain Eaters". As with Corman everyone did everything, may be someone told him to stay and gave him a phrase so that the tape in its final section would not decay.

In the same way that in moments of tension, the soundtrack resorts to more sandunguero Latin jazz, in the vein of Gillespie's Latinbop, so that things do not go downhill. Those are the kind of things that are appreciated in this type of cinema.

Cry Baby Killer, The (1958)

*** (out of 4)

This is somewhat of a Holy Grail for me because I've been dying to see this flick since I became a fan of Jack Nicholson back in the late 80s. I've been pretty lucky to know people who own rare movies but not a single one ever had this film and in fact, I never he knew anyone who had actually seen it. In the film Nicholson (in his debut) plays a hot headed teen who is upset when the town's tough guy steals his girl. After being jumped, Nicholson gets ahold of a gun, kills the tough guy and then takes another man, a woman and her baby hostage. A tough as nails cop (Harry Lauter) tries to talk him out as the television station and onlookers gather outside. This moral/teenage flick is in the same vein as Rebel Without a Cause but it stands out due in large part to being Nicholson's debut. I wouldn't say he gives a good performance as he goes way too over the top in a few scenes but you can see certain trademarks that'll show up in some of his classic performances. The scenes with him screaming at the crying baby get some unintentional laughs as does a few other scenes but this just adds to the cult appeal. Since this film is on DVD now I'm sure it will become a cult classic of the Drive-In teenage films. Producer Roger Corman and screenwriter Leo Gordon have cameos.

So after watching this movie, another curiosity was sated: I got to see Jack Nicholson's first film and find out if it was any good. Well, it's not too bad and since it's only an hour, not too much time was wasted watching it. Nicholson certainly does well when he becomes desperate enough to hold up a woman with a baby and a middle-aged black man hostage after shooting at a couple of punks who beat him up at the beginning of the movie. Roger Corman was the executive producer only here so there's not much of his creative hand in the finished product though it was interesting seeing his cameo when he briefly talks to the TV reporter before he was going on the air to broadcast the standoff. So on that note, The Cry Baby Killer is worth a look for any Nicholson completists.

"The Cry Baby Killer" (1958) is at best a very mediocre film.

It revolves around 17-year-old Jimmy Wallace who is brutally beaten by a gangster and two of his teen-age punk friends, because one of them wants to move in on Jimmy's girl, Carole. Later, Jimmy shows up at the hangout of the teenage crowd to take Carole away, and challenges one of them , Manny, to a fight. Manny's two buddies move in with brass knuckles, and one of them pulls a pistol, which falls to the ground in the scuffle. Jimmy picks it up and shoots Manny and Al. A police officer orders Jimmy to surrender, but he panics, thinking he killed the pair, and dives into a small storeroom, and holds a man, woman and her baby as hostages.

The premise itself is intriguing but the film simply doesn't deliver in terms of either emotional weight or production value. It is poorly conceived, directed and not the best of films. However, this is Jack Nicholson's feature debut film, and as he would become notorious for in his career, he is nailing every second of his time on screen. Recommended only for film enthusiasts and fans of Jack Nicholson.