The Cry Baby Killer (1958)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Jus Addiss

Writers:

Leo Gordon (screenplay)
Leo Gordon (story)

Release Date:

17 August 1958 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

YESTERDAY a Teenage Rebel... TODAY a mad-dog slayer!

Plot:

Nicholson makes his film debut as a juvenile delinquent, who panics when he thinks he's committed murder.

Plot Keywords:

Police | Surrender | Panic | Hostage | Juvenile Delinquent

Cast

Harry Lauter	...	Police Lt. Porter
Jack Nicholson	...	Jimmy Wallace
Carolyn Mitchell	...	Carole Fields
Brett Halsey	...	Manny Cole
Lynn Cartwright	...	Julie
Ralph Reed	...	Joey
John Shay	...	Police Officer Gannon
Barbara Knudson	...	Mrs. Maxton
William A. Forester	...	Carl Maxton
John Weed	...	Police Sgt. Reed
Frank Richards	...	Pete Gambelli
Bill Erwin	...	Mr. Wallace
James Fillmore	...	Al
Smoki Whitfield	...	Sam (as Jordan 'Smoki' Whitfield)
Ed Nelson	...	Rick Connor

Runtime:

70 min | USA:75 min (director's cut)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Allied Artists Pictures

Trivia:

This was Jack Nicholson's film debut.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "E! True Hollywood Story: Jack Nicholson" (2005)

this rare find is completely watchable on one level, almost in spite of itself...

You'd know why you'd want to find this film, as it's the ultra-low budget, barely-a-drive-in quickie that features the great Jack Nicholson in his feature debut at the tender age of 21 (he was a mailman at MGM in his previous years in Hollywood). He plays a youth out of control, though also under duress. He's taken a woman and kid hostage, and outside the crowd builds in anticipation as the cops struggle to find a compromise to get everyone safely out. The film is complete with a theme song that just repeats 'cry-cry-cry, cry-baby killer', and in a style that is as polished as a junkyard dog. The story itself, by the way, is told in a way that is so simplistic and with over-acting (or maybe too trying-to-be-realistic acting) that is typical of this kind of un-pretentiously kind of fare. But the reason in the end to reach into the recesses of ebay or elsewhere to find it is to see Nicholson in his early larval stage of a career, and somehow he does make the work fascinating to watch. Obviously not his best by a long-shot, and his first big break in the B-world would come later in Little Shop of Horrors and even later in Easy Rider. However I did like how he was keeping his scenes pretty well grounded, keeping to the situation at hand with all of the confusion and shattered rebellion that's in a youth of his real age. It's almost like checking out the Beatles when they were still the Quarry Men or something- it's not necessarily 'good', but you might be surprised at how it's not really bad either.