High School Confidential . Austin Chronicle . 03-23-98

High School Confidential

DIRECTED BY: Jack Arnold

REVIEWED: 03-23-98

When the opening credits of High School Confidential (D: Jack Arnold, 1958; with Russ Tamblyn, John Drew Barrymore, Michael Landon, Mamie Van Doren) feature that bourbon-drinkin', gun totin', scandalizin' l3-year-old-cousin-marryin' Jerry Lee Lewis being driven through town on a flatbed truck and pounding out the title song on his piano, you know you're in for a wild ride. Rusty Tamblyn blows into town and sets out to take the local gang away from slow-walkin', cool-talkin' John Drew Barrymore, then soon gets to the bottom of the dope racket, going all the way to the big boss pusher (Jackie Coogan! Uncle Fester!!). He asks the teacher (Jan Sterling) for a date and pulls his switchblade on any of the aged high schoolers who want to rumble. Problem is, puny old Tamblyn doesn't look like he could cut in front of you in the express lane at HEB, but whatever. Several kids go directly from weed to heroin, but Rusty turns out to be an undercover cop and the horrors of drug abuse are eradicated from another high school. Check out the brunette doing the Kerouac-meets-Lenny Bruce rant in the coffeehouse with Fester banging away on a piano. And, of course, Mamie Van Doren wears tight sweaters and shows off her poke-your-eye-out figure as Tamblyn's hot-to-trot "aunt." With Lyle Talbot, Charles Chaplin, Jr., and Corman vet Mel Welles. Is it a serious look at drug abuse, or just cheap exploitation? Either way, it's a classic of its kind.

--Jerry Renshaw

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