High School Confidential! (1958)

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

High School Confidential! is one of those films that was meant to be a straight drama but ends up being an unintentional laugh riot when you see grown actors trying to act hip while delivering dialog that stereotypes the scene of a 1950's High School.Russ Tamblyn plays an undercover cop who attempts to clean out a high school of pot smokers and heroin. Mamie Van Doren (wearing bullet bras under her outfits) plays his "aunt" in her typical vampish style. John Drew Barrymore plays a Southern accented drug dealer who is the main target of the bust and Jackie "Uncle Fester" Coogan plays the drug boss.What makes HSC so funny is the dialog. Grown adults uttering dated "hip" dialog and the constant amount of sexist come-ons to the females made me laugh. Pushing the propaganda of marijuana as evil and sinister seems really outdated since more people than ever before are toking. Regardless, it's worth viewing to laugh at the script. It's worth waiting out the boring scenes just for that next piece of emoting that Dante from Devil May Cry stole from them.I do wish I lived my teen years in the 1950's. Seemed like a fun time to go to school. Maybe Jerry Lee Lewis would show up in a flat bed truck to perform to students.

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.

This is an amazing 1950s movie because it is both highly entertaining and really cheesy fun--making it a sure cult classic. Unlike some anti-drug teenager cult films like REEFER MADNESS, this one actually has decent production values and performances--though I'll also admit there is more than enough cheese to please the "bad film fans" out there.Russ Tamblyn plays the lead. He enters a new high school like a typhoon--walking in like he owns the place and full of hep-cat 50s lingo. At the time, audiences must have been really shocked by his thuggish ways, though today his antics just look pretty silly and way, way over the top. Later in the film, however, you discover that his "new thug on the block" routine is just an act, as he's really working with the cops to get to the bottom of a drug ring selling to rich kids at a local high school.The film's pluses are it's hip lingo and beatnik ways. It's hip style is highly reminiscent of films such as BUCKET OF BLOOD and it is really fun to watch the "wild and untamed youth running wild" (they are about the tamest "untamed youth" I've seen since WILD ONE). Also, the plot isn't bad--making this like a hipster version of Film Noir. One of the negatives were the occasionally over the top performances--especially Mamie Van Doren as she plays a cat in heat who is desperate for action. She was perhaps the horniest lady on celluloid in the 1950s! Again, though, this was cheesy but also rather fun to watch as she acted like a sex addict going through withdrawal. However, the biggest problem with the film by far is that most of the "teenagers" in this film were actually too old even to play college students! Of the main cast, the youngest was Michael Landon who was 22 and yet they have them all playing high schoolers! It's laughable but again because it's all so funny and entertaining, I think it really adds to the film's kooky charm.So the final verdict is that this is a highly watchable and pretty well made camp classic. Is it art? Of course not--but that's what makes it all work somehow.

Funny looking back at it now. This is a classic juvenile delinquency melodrama with many familiar faces. Tony Baker(Russ Tamblyn)moves to California from Chicago and he hits the high school hard and heavy to make himself known. He is living with his sex-crazed Aunt Gwen(Mamie Van Doren). Not just wanting to be a stud, but THE stud. He immediately gets into the drug scene and strives to be the top dog dealer. There in the middle of the havoc he has induced, no one knows that he's a narc. Jerry Lee Lewis opens and closes the flick riding on a flatbed truck singing "High School Confidential". Cutie Diane Jergens plays Tony's love interest. Other familiar faces you may recognize: Jan Sterling, Jackie Coogan, Lyle Talbot, Michael Landon, band leader Ray Anthony and John Drew Barrymore, who would become the estranged father of actress Drew Barrymore.