Cast:
Tom Laughlin (Scotty White), Peter Miller (Bill Cholly), Richard Bakalyan (Eddy), Rosemary Howard (Janice Wilson), Leonard Belove (Mr. White), Helen Hawley (Mrs. White), James Lantz (Mr. Wilson), Lotus Corelli (Mrs. Wilson), and Christine Altman (Sissy Wilson) Directed by Robert Altman (#900 - Nashville and #1433 - M*A*S*H)
Review:
"The danger of writing a script is that everybody has the same voice. I think when they don’t have the same voice it makes the film better. So when you have five different sources in there, five different voices, it seems closer to reality. I’m trying to push the actor into becoming a real creator—creating that part. Bringing things to it that the writer and/or myself couldn’t bring."
Here we have a couple of firsts. This was the first feature film in work of Robert Altman. The Kansas City native returned from service in the Thirteenth Air Force with the interest of writing, but his minimal success in that field (one film script got sold) had him move back, and his next assignment was with the Calvin Company, an advertising, educational, and industrial film production company. He directed many industrial shorts for the company before he got his first foray beyond that with television in the early 1950s. This was the first starring role for Tom Laughlin. Yes, before he got into the act of trying to write and direct his own films, Laughlin was an actor, starting in 1955 with a handful of television appearances and one film to his name before this feature. If you can believe it, Laughlin and Altman did not get along during production, mostly because of the way that Laughlin wanted to do the film (Laughlin described himself as a "Stanislavsky actor", not a Method actor), complete with actually preparing for a tired moment by running laps, and Altman later called him a "pain in the ass" while finding the best way to settle things: he simply told Laughlin what he wanted in a certain scene; for his part, Laughlin described the film as "very amateurish" along with expressing a dislike of Altman's lack of organization, and at one point he started rolling the cameras to shoot a scene rather than wait for Altman to arrive (because he felt guilty given whose money it was). Tying this all together is the debut production of Elmer Rhoden Jr, a Kansas City-born exhibitor of films that was president of a theater chain that encompassed six states. Wanting to tap into the teen market in an era where there was plenty to go around from rock and roll to hot rod features, Rhoden Jr made his first effort into producing, complete with using the theater chain as a way to get his film regional success. With a budget of roughly $63,000, he recruited Altman, who would write along with recruit the people required for said production in terms of casting and location picking, complete with recruiting people from his industrial films and a mix of California talent (including cooperation from the Kansas City Police Department) to go alongside Altman's wife at the time (Corelli, who divorced him when he began having Hawley as his mistress) and Altman's daughter as actors in the film. Rhoden would make two further features as a producer before he died in 1959, dying a couple of months after suffering a heart attack (owing to his alcoholism) at the age of 37.
Admittedly, if you did not know that Altman was the director or that Laughlin was the star, you might not be inclined to pick it out among the oodles of delinquent films. But the film is a decent one in the ways that matter most from folks making their first attempt at breaking into features, regardless of how they thought of the other. Laughlin would get his chances to act and direct by 1960 while Altman would get to direct on a regular basis in television before he got his next chance to direct in features again with Countdown (1967) before hitting the big time in the 1970s. The Delinquents isn't exactly anything special, but it was a modest success that did all the things one might see from seeing people (not quite teenagers but not quite just 30-year olds) try to play juveniles and do the mildest form of "bad things" (you see a mildly involving switchblade fight to go with robbery hijinks and partying). You can see the idea of Altman wanting to have loose and free dialogue go with his favoring of trying to not go through all of the Hollywood channels. One can see the seeds of the observer of chaos even in a movie that Altman might have been only loosely fine with in the long run. He got to make a movie on his terms but saw it changed with voiceovers to start and end the movie that present it as a tale of violence and immorality...that sees delinquency as a disease that could be treated with either more attention from parents or youth groups. I think Altman just wanted to make a movie where teens just go around on a cruise about town without an easy endgame, and in that sense, it is a neat little movie, efficient in 72 minutes in going where it wants without seeming stifled by boredom. The parental figures present their cases of thinking they know what is best for their kids in this age (which isn't like when they were kids, obviously). Laughlin may have the screen presence of a rock tumbling down a well, but it is a graceful presence that handles what is required in someone trapped in expectations on all sides without becoming just a Method punching bag while Howard maneuvers panic with mild success. Bakalyan and Miller won't exactly set a new presence as "hoods of tomorrow" like the poster might say, but they are capable threats that you would expect from a film like this that keeps things firmly on the level. As a whole, things come, things go, but some things are forever, whether that involves actors or directors getting their first true chance to make an impression mean something. Regardless of how the experience went, The Delinquents is a solid feature for its headliners that makes quite the curiosity for those who wish to seek it out as an average but fascinating piece of chaos.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
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