The Delinquents
With Tom Laughlin, Peter Miller, Richard Bakalyan.
US, 1957, DCP, black & white, 72 min.
DCP source: Robert Altman Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive
Shot on the cheap in his hometown of Kansas City, Altman’s feature debut—on which he served as writer, director and producer—has all the surface components of a go-for-broke American independent film. The end product, however, suggests less the reckless primal scream of a young visionary than an uncommonly proficient industry calling card. Notwithstanding a bookending Public Service Announcement tacked on to placate censors, The Delinquents offers a narratively graceful and emotionally rich take on the mostly disreputable Eisenhower-era subgenre of the teenage exploitation film. In an exciting promise of things to come, Altman corrals a spirited cast of amateurs for a snapshot of the fractious cross-sections of suburban Middle America: the pampered pretty boys, the bad seeds from across the tracks, and the adults who are all-too-oblivious to their children’s changing social habits. Though more a forecast of Altman’s formidable gifts as a storyteller than his relatively avant-garde stylistic sensibilities, the film nonetheless features striking bird’s-eye-view camerawork that encourages one to see provincial conflict as the product of an interconnected community rather than mere individuals.
PRECEDED BY
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The Perfect Crime
Directed by Robert Altman.
With Leonard Belove, Owen Bush, Art Ellison.
US, 1955, digital video, black & white, 20 min.
Copy source: Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
Made by the Calvin Company in Kansas City for the National Safety Council, The Perfect Crime is a grim (but not gory) lecture on safe driving.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
Vincent & Theo
Fool for Love
Prêt-à-porter
California Split
Thieves Like Us
A Perfect Couple
A Prairie Home Companion
O.C. and Stiggs
That Cold Day in the Park
Corn's-A-Poppin'
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Gingerbread Man
Dr. T and the Women
Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
