I just finished watching "High School Confidential" on TCM, and it's even worse than I remembered it was when I first watched it 50 years ago at a Drive-In theater. I knew how misguided the plot was even back in 1958. Being a 16 year old teenager at the time, it bugged me, because the movie in no way represented my generation. Like the guys I hung around with, we all felt that it was just an older adult's impression of what they thought it was like, to be a teenager at the time! Talking' jive, Beatnik poetry, grown adults playing the part of teenagers, using expressions like, "Crazy man", "I dig it the most", and "weed-head!" Hot Rods and Roadsters were popular at the time, but no teenager trying to be cool, would be caught dead driving a Chrysler Imperial Convertable as his car of choice. Even worse, the film promotes the false impression that smoking a joint is highly addictive and causes one to become totally drug-crazed, ala "Refer Madness." And that those who do smoke a joint, automatically move right on up to heroin afterward. I think movies like this one, did little in trying to persuade teenagers in the 1950s to be good, because they failed to keep it real. It was so over the top in every way, that it ended up being a comedic parody of itself.
Review of High School Confidential!
