OVERLOOKED MOVIE: TEEN-AGE CRIME WAVE (1955)

 Kids today!  What's the matter with them?  And why don't those whippersnappers get off my lawn?

In Teen-age Crime Wave, Jane is falsely convicted of beineg an accesory to a robbery and is ent to an industrial school with cellmate Terry.  Terry's boyfriend Mike springs them, killing deputy in the process.  They hideoput in a farmhouse while waiting for Mike's friend Al to come with money and a getaway car.  Terry becomes interested in Ben, the farmer's son, while Mike becomes more and more unhinged.  They kill a neighbor and have to flee the farmhouse.  SPOILER ALERT:. In the socke finish, Ben sudbues Mike, and Terry is shot and killed, but not before attesting to Jane's innocence.

Tommy Cook (b. 1930) played Mike.  Cook was a child actor known for playing Little Beaver in 1940's Adventures of Red Ryder and Kimbu the young jungle boy in 1941's Jungle Girl.  He won a photoplay Award for "Outstanding Performance" for his role as a juvenile delinquent in The Vicious Years (1950).  Typecast in exotic roles, his career dwindles as he moved from child actor to adult actor, and his shiort staure did not help in the transition.  He was a stsndout junior tennis player and eventually became well-known as an organizer of celebrity gala charity events. In the 1950's he wrote a script for himself about cops who go undercover; the script eventully became the basis of the television show The Mod Squad.

Terry was played by Molly McCart (b. 1929), whose brief career lasted from 1955 to 1958.  Teen-age Crimw Wave was her first film.  She appeared in two others:  A Kiss Before Dying and Dino.  she also appeared in episodes of five television shows.

Jane was played by Sue England (1928-2018), whose career began in 1945 and lasted until 1974.  among her films were The Underworld Story, The Hidden City, The Women of Pitcairn Island, and Funny Face.  She worked extensively in episodic television from the 1950s on.  Her second husband, Larry Stewart, was the nameless Video Ranger in Captain Video, Master of the Stratospher (1951); he later became the head of the group that would become The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

The role of Ben was played by Frank Griffin (1929-2024), who switched careers in 1969 to become an in-demand make-up artist.

Teen-age Crime Wave was directed by Fred F. Sears (Don't Knock the Rock, Utah Blaine, The Giant Claw).  It was scripted by Ray Buffam (The Brain from Planet Arous, Teenage Monster, of Lost Women) and Harry Essex (It Came from Outer Space, I, the Jury, Creature from the Black Lagoon).

They just don't make movies like this any more.  Perhaps that's a good thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut8vQnjSPwc