522-Teen-Age Crime Wave

Film Year:  1955

Genre:  Drama, Crime

Director:  Fred F. Sears

Starring:  Tommy Cook, Molly McCart, Sue England, Frank Griffin, James Bell, Kay Reihl

MST Season:  5

The Movie

A classic example of Hollywood's juvenile-delinquency-put-on-film genre of the 1950's, Teen-Age Crime Wave is a halfway fetishizing of the lawless lifestyle and a tsk-tsk'ing of a couple of kids who "need some good parenting."  The film tells the story of Mike and Terry, a pair of underage criminals who get busted in a getaway.  Also there is nice girl Jane, who is in the wrong place at the wrong time, but gets taken to court as an accessory and she and Terry get convicted of robbery.  Mike, who made his escape, busts the two dames out, and he and Terry take the reluctant Jane with them so she won't alert the cops.  The trio take refuge in a remote countryside farmhouse, taking an older couple hostage while Mike and Terry figure out what to do next.  But time is running out on them quickly.

There is something of an allegory in play with Teen-Age Crime Wave in that the primary story of the film is about parental figures trying to reach troubled teenagers and convince them to turn their life around.  It's a thankless task, as Mike and Terry are one dimensional characters who do have sob stories in their narrative, but seemingly are in this lifestyle because they choose to be there and they like it.  They are counteracted by characters like Jane and Ben, the older couple's visiting son, who are together individuals seemingly because they have stable homes.  But the mirror of lifestyle doesn't always work, because Mike and Terry are "in it for the kicks," so to speak.  It comes off at more than one point that they're doing this not out of necessity, but because it's fun.  That is, until we get to a conclusion where things aren't fun anymore, and boy, they should have listened to those old people!

The movie is a bit too bare bones to fully flesh itself out, and it constantly squanders the complicated relationships that it could put on display.  Mike and Terry would be engaging if Mike weren't a generic tough guy wannabe and Terry weren't a generic sidekick moll.  Being an innocent caught in the middle, Jane should find some place in this narrative but she never does.  Instead she screams and whines about not wanting to be here.  I mean, I'm sure that's true, but why is she here in this story?  The tragedy of a good person being taken down by the bad deeds of others is a decent arc, but it doesn't really go anywhere and it comes of as a shallow propaganda of "don't do bad things because they hurt good people."  That's a nice sentiment, but it's wasted.

Teen-Age Crime Wave is a moderate little crime drama that doesn't last too long, and it's reasonable to not expect too much from low-budget, superficial productions like this.  At the same time, one can easily see how many things could be added to it to make it a better movie.

The Episode

"This movie is forty minutes of heart-driving living room action!"

The beauty of riffing Teen-Age Crime Wave is that in many ways the film is one of the most scenery chewing one-set plays the show could ask for.  The film mostly follows one-note personality characters, and they spend a lot of time in one area just getting pissy at each other.  There is a lot of personality to project with the comedy, and project they do.  They ride these traits hard, and take the conflict between each and make it funnier.  It works.  Teen-Age Crime Wave is a riot from start to finish, with it's stereotypical bad kid whack-jobs invading a quiet Christian family's home, leading to many a funny scenario as they execute their stupid plan of just pointing a revolver at people for a few days while they grunt at them.  This episode is wildly fun.

"I'm afraid you're going down, Kitten.  Hard."

The host segments tend to be a little lower key, with a space deli, a Mentos commercial parody, and a tribute to "The Doughy Guy."  Cute, but not memorable.  However, this episode is noteworthy for being the last gasp of the Invention Exchange on the series, which was completely phased out until the reboot on Netflix in 2017.  The last two episodes didn't really feature one, but this episode reintroduces the concept as Dr. Forrester introduces Satan's Jockstrap Mace Mousse, and Mike invents a jetpack to try and escape.  Perhaps Dr. F just found that Mike wasn't taking the tradition seriously and ended his inventing days right here.

Really this is mostly an excuse to set up a gag we had last seen in Daddy-O, where the movie is running short so the episode pads out time with a comedy setup where the closing credits start and stop over and over again.  This time Frank keeps hitting the button, only for the feed to start back up and have Dr. F sneak up on poor Frank and spray Satan's Jockstrap in his eyes.  If Frank's screams of agony make you laugh (and why wouldn't they?), this is a series highlight.

I find Teen-Age Crime Wave to be something of a sleeper hit episode.  Very few people talk about it, but whenever I discuss it with someone there always seem to be positive feelings.  I personally think it's a laugh riot, and one of the funniest episodes of, not only the season, but the whole series.  I always hope one day that it might get its due for just how funny it really is.

Classic

TURN IT OFF!  TURN IT OOOOAAAAAAAARGH!

The DVD

Shout Factory surfed the Teen-Age Crime Wave in their Volume XXXIII collection, with solid video and audio.  Bonus features included a documentary on producer Samuel Katzman called Film It Again, Sam:  The Katzman Chronicles.  Narrated by Tom Weaver among other film historian interviews, this doc covers Katzman's diverse career, from working on classics like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, disasters like The Giant Claw, making cheap B-pictures starring Bela Lugosi (The Corpse Vanishes include), serials starring Batman and Superman, his tenure with Elvis Pressley's filmography, and even small-scale teen dramas like Teen-Age Crime Wave.  What a career!

Following that up is an interview with star Tommy Cook, called From Jungle Boy to Teenage Jungle.  Cook covers his career of a child actor leading up to filming Teen-Age Crime Wave, which concludes with a fairly lengthy account of filming our featured movie, including preparing for his moment that closes the picture.  The interview doesn't really go past that point, even though Cook had a career well into the 70's, including television cartoon voice work and also co-starring in the Rifftrax'd feature Missile to the Moon.

Also included is a trailer to the film.