The big news about this brisk little juvenile delinquent flick is that it’s the first feature film by Robert Altman. Yep, before MASH and Nashville, he started out with pomade and switchblades. He wrote, produced, and directed. Does this movie foreshadow Altman’s later, more acclaimed work? Not really. It’s a fairly hacked-out potboiler, but it’s entertaining over its slim seventy-two minutes. Here, Tom Laughlin plays a nice high school boy who hits a string of bad luck after his girlfriend’s father breaks them up because he doesn’t approve of her going steady. From there, Laughlin pouts off into the night and runs into a gang of teenage nasties who decide to fuck with him just because they can and because he’s about as gullible as a five-year-old. Punches get thrown, switchblades get flicked, and pompadours glisten. The highlight is the scene where the gang forces Laughlin to pound back glasses of liquor over and over.
Shot independently in Kansas City.