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"The story you are about to see is about violence and immorality... teenage violence and immorality." A regional response to Rebel Without a Cause, Robert Altman's first film opens with a foreglimpse of Kansas City to announce a mercurial jazz session rather than a rock 'n' roll opera. Adult outrage over young sweethearts is the catalyst, the living-room bookshelf prominently features Camus' The Fall. The lad (Tom Laughlin) is rather easygoing, he goes by himself to the drive-in and ends up in the middle of a rumble, just a case of mistaken identity. The gelhead joyriders have a leader (Peter Miller) and a vengeful Iago (Richard Bakalyan), who, in perhaps the neophyte filmmaker's vision of freaky creative impudence taking over a musty studio, hold an all-night soiree in an abandoned mansion in the woods (cf. Assayas' Cold Water). "A cry to a busy world, a protest, a reminder to those who must set the example." Innocents in suburban collisions, a theme from Val Lewton (Youth Runs Wild) for the earnest protagonist and his girl (Rosemary Howard) and callow shake-up artists with nothing better to do. Concurrent with Polanski (Break Up the Dance) and Frankenheimer (The Young Stranger), the shifting plate tectonics of Old and New Hollywood already predicted by Altman. The hero forced to gulp down glass after glass of Scotch goes into North by Northwest, a scuffle on the front lawn showcases Laughlin's Billy Jack moves. "Patience, compassion, understanding, and respect for parental and civil authority" are ultimately prescribed. With Helen Hawley, Leonard Belove, and Christine Altman. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |