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| Photography by: |
Charles Paddock |
Art direction by: |
Chet Allen |
Edited by: |
Helene Turner |
Music by: |
Bill Nolan Quintet Minus Two |
The Delinquents is a 1957 motion picture which Robert Altman wrote, produced, and directed in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri during the summer of 1956 on a $45,000 budget.
Although The Delinquents is best known today for being the big-screen directorial debut of a young Robert Altman, it is also known as a classic example of the many melodramatic juvenile delinquent exploitation films of the mid-1950s and as being a part of a rather innovative and pioneering independent film production effort in Kansas City during this time.
Elmer Rhoden Jr. was a Kansas City motion picture theater exhibitor, president of the prominent Commonwealth Theaters chain in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Rhoden Jr. wanted to get into producing movies. After all, he had the distributing apparatus at hand and the necessary capital to invest. He observed the film industry of 1955 to see if there was a need or a new craze for something new. There was. Although televison was drawing viewers out of the theaters, the teenagers still went to the drive-ins with their dates and what they wanted to see were exploitation films which appealed to them, with stories of rebellious delinquents and drag-racers (Rebel Without a Cause), monster invasions and sci-fi stories (Earth vs. the Flying Saucers), horror stories (I Was a Teenage Werewolf), and rock and roll musicals (Rock Around the Clock). The teens didn't care if these films were low-budget and "schlocky," they just wanted entertainment.
There was also another factor at work. Due to the "consent decree" of 1953, the major studios were constrained from booking their own chains by this antitrust ruling. But the Commonwealth circuit and other small regional independent film companies, by virtue of not having previously existed as film producers, were exempt from this rule. It was the days of the low-budget regional filmmaker and exploitation pictures, and Rhoden Jr. figured that if he budgeted his "teen-flicks" cheaply enough and peddled them to his own Commonwealth chain, he would be guaranteed a tidy profit. So, in early summer of 1956, he raised $63,000 with the help of other local businessmen in Kansas City, decided his first teen film would be about troubled teens, thought up a title for it and nothing else (The Delinquents), and he hired local filmmaker Robert Altman, who had been directing industrial films and documentaries for the local Calvin Company and knew Rhoden Jr. slightly, to write and direct the film with just the information about the budget and the title.
Using several starting points such as The Blackboard Jungle, The Wild One, and Rebel Without a Cause for influence, Altman wrote the screenplay for The Delinquents in just five to seven days. He might have been able to complete it that soon because he was used to writing scripts in even less time for Calvin industrial films, and maybe he finished it so quick because The Delinquents didn't really present a real writing challenge.Plot
In suburban Kansas City, 18-year-old Scotty White and 16-year-old Janice Wilson are very much in love, but their parents stand between them because Janice is "too young to go steady" and Scotty "hangs out with the wrong crowd." At the drive-in alone one night, Scotty decides to go to his hot-rod greaser pal Cholly, who heads a gang of carousing delinquents, and ask for help. Cholly cooks up the idea of posing as Janice's new boyfriend, and bringing her to meet Scotty every night. The plan works well, and the teen crowd all meet at an abandoned mansion on the edge of town. However, the party gets out of hand, with drinking and dancing, and Scotty and Janice leave to be alone. Soon after, the police mysteriously appear and break up the drunken free-for-all. Cholly and his right-hand-delinquent Eddy suspect Scotty of tipping off the police, and the whole gang kidnaps Scotty the next day and forces him to gulp down an entire bottle of Scotch when he won't admit to being the informant. In confusion after Scotty passes out from drinking, the gang takes the besotted Scotty for a ride, and just happen to see a service station where they pull in to get some gas. Eddy decides to hold up the station, but unfotunately Scotty unknowingly bungles it when he wakes up. Cholly hits the station attendant on the head with a gas pump, and the gang speeds off, leaving Scotty behind with the cash and the attendant. Scotty staggers home, finds the gang has kidnaped Janice, has several fights, and then has a switchblade fight with Cholly in a remarkably inventive kitchen fight scene (Scotty flings sugar bowls and baby fences into Cholly's face as he approaches), and goes to the police, who will surely clear him of the gang's crimes. [ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Delinquents ]
Some related entries: Darna | Jason's Lyric | Spider-Man 2 | Tickle Me | How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days | For Keeps? | 1911 in film | Pubis angelical | The Best of Youth | Johnny English | The Fairly OddParents Movie
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