BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

MartinHafer "Teen-Age Crime Wave" is clearly intended as an exploitational film--to scare the audience and sensationalize the topic of juvenile crime. Plus, it's doggone silly because the teens in the film are all closer to their 30s than their teen! Oddly, this sort of bizarro casting was the norm in the 1950s--even with higher quality films of the genre such as "Rebel Without a Cause" where only one member of the starring cast was high school age! Yet, in spite of its low budget and all its other obvious shortcomings, there is something strangely entertaining about this film and I do recommend it--but still give it a 5 due to the production values. As far as entertainment goes, it's far better. The acting is good for unknowns and the script is excellent--probably too good for a film of such low pedigree! It's a great film for exploitation lovers or someone wanting something different.The film has a familiar theme--similar to "The Desperate Hours" in that a group of psycho criminals take a family hostage and spend much of the film menacing them. A similar low-budget film made just a few later is the surprisingly good "The Sadist"--by Arch Hall--a man known for genuinely crappy films! It's well worth seeking if you like "Teen-Age Crime Wave".

Michael_Elliott Teen-age Crime Wave (1956) ** (out of 4) Good girl Jane (Sue England) gets mixed up with bad girl (Molly McCart) and soon both of them are headed to jail even though Jane is innocent. On the way to jail June's boyfriend (Tommy Cook) kills the cop and takes the girls with him where they land at a farm house where they hold an elderly couple hostage. This is yet another juvenile delinquent movie from this era, which seemed to have at least ten per month. This one here comes from director Sears who's best known for the laughable The Giant Claw and thankfully this one here features just as many laughs. Yes, if you're expecting Citizen Kane then you're going to be disappointed but if you want some cheap, exploitation laughs then this is a decent little time killer. The movie runs at a pretty fast pace except for the final twenty-minutes where things slow up a tad too much. I think knocking off ten-minutes of the 77-minute running time would have helped things. As for the actual film, you get girls fighting and bad guys Cook and McCart acting tough. All of this makes for some pretty good laughs but McCart actually manages to be very entertaining with her seduction/tough girl image. The scene where she tries to seduce the farmer's son in the barn is priceless. Cook doesn't give what I'd consider a good performance but it is campy enough to deliver some fun. The production values aren't too bad and the supporting players do decent enough of work but in the end this film is all about nostalgia and laughs and it has plenty of both.

whpratt1 Enjoyed this old time film from the 1950's where Tommy Cook, ( Mike Denton) plays the role of a two-time loser in robbery and his sidekick is Terry Marsh, (Molly McCart) who also has a police record. Mike & Molly commit another robbery and Mike kills a police office while he is escaping and this couple wind up taking over a farm house where an elderly couple live. There is another girl named Jane Koberly,(Sue England) who is a delinquent girl and gets deeply involved with Mike and Molly. Mike continues to shoot and kill people at the farm house and then there is a big shoot out at the historic Griffith Park Observation in Los Angles, California. This is not the greatest of black and white films from the 1950's, but I bet plenty of people enjoyed this film during those years.

antifonz I love MST3K. It was my favorite TV show, ever. That in mind, this was the only movie I've seen them do that I would have preferred watching without the ironic comments, and that's because of how subversive this film is intended to be. It's obvious that the director intended the audience to find the "Teen-age Crime Wave" glamorous, and every other character completely corny and bullet-worthy. It's a forerunner of Natural Born Killers. In fact, I found myself wondering why the "villians" didn't murder more people! It really would have been in their best interests, after all, and, hey - once you've killed one straight who wants to put you away forever, you may as well keep on doing it, right? Despite the attempts at making the male criminal somewhat unappealing, for his stupidity and reliance on his gun for courage, Terry is one of the most successfully appealing criminals in the history of film. Notice the scene in the barn where she tries to seduce the Good Son, who then thinks he got the drop on her when he steals her pistol, but - oops! It's not loaded. And she has the loaded one! Anyone not entranced by this vixen yet is a neuter. I highly recommend this film to any admirer of the perverse and subversive. It's one of those films from the mid '50's that only masqueraded as a morality tale.