Against a rudimentary jazzy score, this seventy-seven-minute film opens as the viewer follows a custom-lowered 1949-50 Ford sedan motoring through city streets. As it pulls into a local market—an habitual robbery destination—the grille has magically morphed into a custom design, removing Ford’s iconic "bullet" grille. The Ford gets its original grille back after leaving the market. It is the first concrete evidence of a strangulated budget. The occupants install their creatively demented paper masks and demand as much cash—this week—as they can. They hop back into the car as their female get-away driver peels out in the path of a Trailways bus. Cool. An electric guitar lead cranks up the intensity as the unrecognizable production company, Glenville Productions, and an equally unknown list of actors are displayed. There were worse low-budget films during the era but this is a good illustration of what can happen. This film would seem to give kooky beatniks a bad rap, man. You dig? Not one beret or goatee, either. The film did have a different working title but “The Miscreants” would have better defined it.
These Hollywood hoodlums are on the edge of oblivion, and if we tracked them over the next decade a few might make my point. Though tame by today's low standards, this group of reprobates represents an era when being bad was cool. They have no respect for property or person as they flaunt their rebellion. On a typical day of irresponsible behavior, the social misfits pull into a diner but an old fart’s car is in their way. The car has stalled so they offer to push it out of the way. The getaway driver, the second-billed Karen Kadler as Iris, backs up a few feet then floors it, crashing the two cars together for their big laugh.
Making an early impression is television’s Peter “Big Valley” Breck, the punk who finds himself to be the funniest of the gang. In reality, he is the scariest of the five as he appears to be high on something. But it is not life. "Nuts" is how gang leader, Tony Travis, appropriately describes him. His disturbing, high-register ratta-tat-tat laugh and cranked head during verbal confrontations define him. He is the actor you will remember the most, similar to Vic Morrow in The Blackboard Jungle fame. His over-the-top performance is the single element making this film infamous and a subject to ridicule. The advertising department understood this as Breck is front and center on the poster.
By pure happenstance, the middle-aged daddy-o is a music business executive. With everyone inside the eatery, the clinging Iris coaxes Travis into singing with a jukebox tune, the film's original title, “Sideburns Don't Need Your Sympathy.” A pretty far-out concept, man! The executive overhears the fabulous “Fabian-like” voice and the “youngster” is invited to audition on a popular television show. The telephone circuits are nearly fried during and after his performance. A record contract is in order. As the “Our Gang” kids might do, the remaining four show up uninvited at the studio mainly to poke equipment and generally make fun of more stuff they do not understand. Travis never thought about being a singer yet he miraculously sight-reads the charts flawlessly. Literally overnight, he becomes a sensation singing dreamy love songs. His rise to stardom creates dissension among the remaining untalented foursome as they see his future better defined as a life-long gang leader. Breck does make his only sensible comment telling Travis if the music producers knew his recent past, man, they would drop him like a rock. Dig, Daddy-o?
One would hate to be a retail owner if these five ever showed themselves. Breck teases a diner owner before killing him for kicks, later stating he did it to bring “Mr. Fancy Pants” back down to gang level. Guilt by association is Travis’ life plan. The police want Breck but do not know the gang leader. Travis wants to end his charade and asks Joyce Terry, the executive's secretary and his love interest, to call the police and reveal his identity. Terry also shared writing credit for this story. Giving a new meaning to the beat generation, the crazed Breck assaults the music executive within an inch of his life then wanders the night streets as a self-confirmed big shot, ending up outside the recording studio where he and Travis have a final altercation. The police arrive with two sets of handcuffs—the gang permanently dissolved. Kadler becomes the first female driver on the demolition derby circuit. Travis becomes the featured soloist for the prison choir and Breck spends his years staring at four padded walls. Jailhouses rock, man!
Note: Though filming wrapped in 1958, the death of its producer delayed its release for another two years. The busy actor and distinct voice-over artist, Paul Frees, wrote and directed this “time-sensitive exposé” as well as providing songs with co-writer, Eddie Brandt, and a bit of voice-over dialogue to boot. Backed by music director, Stanley Wilson, then a driving force in Hollywood’s music industry, the music may be the most notable element of the film. Frees learned his lesson and decided to end his directing aspirations after this debacle. In real life, Tony Travis released a few recordings under the RCA label. He had a mellow, lounge singer style. Totally ubiquitous. Not a fan of the authentic beat generation.
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