High School Caesar

John Ashland is "Matt", big man on high school campus. of course, he was 26 at the time. and the sound is TERRIBLE! so much echo in the microphones. so cheesy. Matt runs everything in this school, but it seems like much ado about nothing. Kind of feels like a john waters film, without the humor. played so straight, its painful. avoid this one. not worth the time. Written and directed by O'Dale Ireland... is that his real name? he only made a couple films. not much on him anywhere. Produced by marathon pictures, which made four more after this. Showing on "Film Detective" channel.

Girls in flared skirts, high school hops, big-finned cars and road races, so what else can geezer refugees from the 50's ask for. Okay, maybe the jd's don't look so tough throwing their weight around, but this is a middle-west, middle-class town, not Big City. Seems teen Ashley runs his classmates like a minor Al Capone. He's got his gang he keeps in line with threats and payoffs. Money comes in from test copies for sale, fees paid to the hops, and other services and shakedowns. Note that there's no mention of drugs or even alcohol among the teens, likely a Production Code result. Trouble is our teen Caesar's dedicated to a gold coin Dad gave him, and that leaves an ironical trail.

It's a well-crafted drive-in flick, but nothing memorable. Fortunately, Ashley mimics a high school hoodlum as well any Hollywood pretty boy could. For action, there's some knuckle bashing and pushing around. Too bad, however, the hop dancing is so modest- no swirling skirts or flashing legs, darn it. Then there're some not very convincing road races, maybe because of careless editing. Surprisingly, filming was done on location in Missouri; too bad we don't see more of the local neighborhoods. That would be an interesting non-Hollywood glimpse.

(In passing-- I just finished actor Steve Stevens' reminiscence on his acting years. In the movie he plays Cricket, Ashley's compliant go-fer. In the book, Stevens surprisingly describes having been a part-time go-fer for notorious LA gangster Mickey Cohen! Which I guess proves that old adage about truth being stranger than fiction.)

Anyway, the movie's a decent time-passer for 50's geezers like me, and maybe even those younger folks interested in seeing power plays among the well-scrubbed.

I watched this movie last night and came away from it a bit disappointed. I definitely do not expect too much from these "teenage gang films" from the late 50's and early 60's but usually they are fun to watch. I found HIGH SCHOOL CAESAR to be short on action which may have taken the fun away. There are some "fun" parts, like the drag/road race but most of the film features a lot of "wooden" dialogue delivered by mainly "wooden" actors which, again, can be fun but not here. Now having said that, I was really taken by and enjoyed the lead performance of John Ashley as Matt Stevens. Ashley, clearly the professional of the cast, delivers a multi-faceted performance which kind of intrigued me. Definitely one of the "cooler" and more "suave" punks you'll come across in this type of film but he is not the low-life, one dimensional, 24/7 always nasty kind of punks you see in these movies. He has another side to him. He has a heart and is a very emotional sort when he is not rigging school elections or shaking down fellow students for protection money. He clearly is troubled and affected by the fact that his parents are never home and spend their time travelling throughout Europe and it was a little strange seeing his fondness for the family maid who he clearly looks at as a surrogate mother while railing on the family butler who he clearly sees as a substitute for his always absent father.

Now, perhaps it's silly to over-analyze a low budget gang film from the era but I found that facet of Ashley's character facinating and his performance even more enjoyable to watch. I thought it was also pretty unique that they would show Ashley as this young, Don Corleone type who holds meetings with his "family" and has payday for his leather jacketed high school "soldiers". I guess it might sound like I enjoyed the film more then I realize but if not for those sequences I mentioned or Ashley's performance, the film would just be a total flop because outside of that, there isn't much. Fans of these types of films may want to check it out, if only to see Ashley's layered performance and perhaps it's a film I should be watching again myself because it does have a pretty good rock and roll score.

I often get a kick out of juvenile delinquent movies from the 1950 to early 1960s since they more often than not come across as campy by today's standards. "High School Caesar" was one movie I wanted to see for a long time but could not locate. I finally found and watched it today, and I have to admit I was kind of let down. Certainly, there are campy elements, like the actors portraying teens who are clearly too old for their roles, and the movie laying the blame for the title figure's actions completely on the shoulders of his absent parents. But for the most part, the movie moves at a kind of slow pace and seems padded even at seventy minutes long. Too bad, because the premise of the movie was promising; had the movie been treated with more competence or had gone down a more exploitive route, we might have had something here.

High School Caesar (1960)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A bully fixes a vote so that he can be elected Class President where he then plans on stealing even more money from students. Here's another drive-in era teen flick that tries to tell a message but even at just over 60-minutes this thing drags along. No camp value whatsoever and not bad enough to get any laughs. Just plain dull.

High School Big Shot (1959)

** (out of 4)

Drive-in era drama about a nerdy teen who gets his shot at the big time when he hears about a million dollar drop off. If you're a fan of these teenage "B" films of the 50s then this here is certainly one of the better ones but we're certainly a long way off from Rebel Without a Cause. The film runs out of steam around the fifty minute mark but the bad acting leads to some nice laughs.

Date Bait (1960)

* (out of 4)

Romeo and Juliet type story of a rich girl who falls for a poor kid. Her father is against them dating as is her ex-boyfriend who just happens to be crazy and has a gangster for an older brother. Bad acting, bad direction and a bad script make for a pretty bad film that feels five times longer than it actually is. The title song is a real hoot however.