What better way to mark the return of the school year than with the absurdity of those over-the- top Juvenile Delinquent films of the 1950s and 1960s?
HIGH SCHOOL CAESAR (1960) – John Ashley, who was about as menacing as Ned Flanders, plays a bitter rich teenage punk who runs illegal operations at his high school like a junior version of organized crime. The title is a reference to Little Caesar, the gangster movie with Edward G Robinson.
Ashley’s JD character peddles the answers to exams, rigs school elections and bilks money from his classmates. All of this is played so seriously you will die laughing. There’s also the obligatory Drag Race and OF COURSE someone dies while drag racing. My Bad Movie page has a full-length review of this one if you’re interested.
SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROCK! (1956) – In this hilarious movie Rock and Roll music is blamed for the Juvenile Delinquency epidemic of the 1950’s. Not only does one particularly irrational city ban rock music completely but it puts the local rock DJ on trial!
They hold him accountable for the vandalism and other JD activities that hit the town because, by their logic, the “wild” music he played CAUSED the teenagers to commit their crimes. This is Continue reading
MATEWAN (1987) – This John Sayles film examines the 1920 Matewan Massacre in the West Virginia coal fields. The workers were attempting to form a union and the owners – the kind of people that One percenter Carlos Slim’s New York Times has proclaimed to be “the conscience of the country” used hired thugs to harass – and even kill – the laborers. 
A THOUSAND DEATHS (2014) – This 22 minute suspense/ horror piece was directed by Adam Zanzie who also adapted the script from the 1899 short story by Jack London. Last Halloween Season I reviewed that short story 
Frontierado is on Friday, August 4th! Here is a Web Series that goes with it like your favorite whiskey. It’s called Arkansas Traveler.
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