I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

hyped garbage

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Saw this film as an episode of the cult television riffing show, Mystery Science Theater 3000. Most likely I would have never seen the film without them and in the end I did not think this film was all that terrible, but still rather bad. The film does a fairly good job of making one stay tuned to see how things were going to end up and the guy who owned the bar and his brother-in-law were kind of entertaining in their way too, but for the most part you have to watch a completely dummy doing everything he can to win over a girl who is clearly using him. He is supposed to be so smart, but lets her play him for a complete fool. The ending is pretty much a bummer, but that really did not come as a surprise to me.The story has a guy that is in line to get recommended for a scholarship who really knows his Shakespeare about to get a beating by the dolt of the school before his girl bails him out and then accepts his offer for a date. She goes on another date and of course she would really appreciate it if Marvin (the super chump)can write her paper too. He does, they get caught and Marvin cracks under the pressure and the girl lets him know she was using him, but that does not stop him from planning a heist of one million dollars which he stupidly tells her about and she informs the dolt and then everything gets messed up and people end up getting shot left and right! This made for a very funny episode of MST3K. The film was short and was preceded by a short that took up an entire section of the show, which leaves me to believe they cut a good deal out of this one as it had a running time of an hour and 10 minutes so there were probably a few things left out like who those two guys were that showed up at the end with the guns. My favorite part was when Servo kept making ferry jokes and Mike just picks him and tosses him.So this film was not horrible as I was totally curious to see how things were going to end up for Marvin. There was a surprise as far as his father, but I thought it was going to end tragic as far as him and his love interest were concerned. I felt bad for the two gentlemen who Marvin got to pull the heist with him though as they got a bit more than they bargained for mainly due to Marvin. Not only did the guy blab to his love interest about the heist and all the details, he also insisted they leave at a set time instead of going early which ended up being another huge mistake. Be quiet, leave early and then show up at the love of your life in a new car and a smile and say, "Get on in" instead.

Badly acted, cheaply made, insipidly written. Those are just a few comments which I could make about this wretched good teen turned hood exploitation mess made primarily for the drive-in crowd, and even the worst of those was a step above this. It doesn't even have the good taste to be bad taste, just duller than the long- haired music teens were rebelling against. A down on his luck good kid turns to crime to make ends meet. Typical teen romantic issues attempt to add a human element to the story but the actors all seem far older than High School kids of the time. At only an hour, this was torture to get through. So there I must place the blame on myself. Others have different options, so if you are for warned, consider yourself lucky.

I'd never heard of actor Pittman, but it turns out he was quite a talented, though ill-fated, young guy. Here he goes from painfully shy to confidently assertive in abrupt, but convincing, fashion. I just wish he and the rest of the cast were better served by the script that loses its way about halfway through. Almost matching Pittman in the talent department is actress Aldridge. Her teenage vixen is enough to send Joan Crawford into fits of jealousy. Betty (Aldridge) is so good at using her wiles to manipulate the hapless Marv (Pittman) in the first part that I thought the movie would be exceptional for a drive-in cheapie.Had the screenplay stayed at this sensitive level, namely the ordinary-looking Marv yearning for self-respect amid sneering peers, the potential for something sublime was great. However the script veers off into a sudden and wildly implausible tangent of Marv leading a gang of criminals on a million-dollar heist, ending in as phony a shoot-out as I've seen. Too bad, because the rest of the cast, with the exception of an awkward Veit (Vince), is also unusually good for a cheap production. In my little book, this was a missed opportunity, a teenage film that could have distinguished itself from the many other drive-in specials of the time. Nonetheless, I now know who Tom Pittman is, and in spades.

**SPOILERS** Not at all popular with the girls in high school young Marvin "Marve" Grant, Tom Pittman is at the end of every school bullies fist for showing them up with his vast knowledge and dedication to study that made him a straight A student.One afternoon the class bully's girl Betty Alexander, Virginia Aldridge, makes a play for Marve. This has her brutish boyfriend Vince Rumbo,almost punch him out. Betty is failing in English and wan't Marve to do her term paper in order for her to pass which Marve does without thinking of what he's getting into. Later at class the English teacher Mr.Carter, Peter Leeds, realizes that the bird-brained Betty couldn't have wrote such an in-dept report of Shakesepare's works and fails her. Mr. Carter also withdraws a recommendation for Marve, who Mr.Carter knows wrote Betty's report, to get a scholarship for college. Depressed over what happened Marve tries to get back into the good graces of Betty but the only way she would even talk to him is if he can give her jewelry and furs as well as loads of cash which the poor nerd doesn't have. At home Marve's dad Mr. Grant, Malcolm Atterbury, a widower is down on his luck and in the dumps being a hopeless alcoholic and out of work which doesn't help Marve's already depressing situation a bit. Later in the film Mr. Grant's depression leads him to hang himself. Working part-time as a shipping clerk Marve overhears his boss. Mr Mathews, Byron Foulger, talk about a big $1,000,000.00 dope deal he's get planned with one of his gangster friends. Marve realizes this is the chance for him to make it big with Betty by giving her all the things that she always dreamed of. As smart as Marve is in school he's a stupid jerk when it comes to girls not realizing that Betty has no interest in him at all and is only using the poor sap for her own selfish gains.Getting together with a local hood, who doubles as a liquor store owner, Samuel Tallman, Louis Quinn, and his safe cracking brother-in-law Harry March, Stanly Adams, the three plan to rip off Mr. Matthews office safe before he can make the switch and take off with the million dollars. Mave makes a fatal mistake by boasting to Betty later of his plan and the two-timing gold digger gets in touch with the Neanderthal Vince Rumbo to rip off Marve and his fellow crooks after they get Mr. Mathews cash. Sad ending to a sad story with Betty getting gunned down by an outraged Vince who finally realized what a snake she really is with him getting shot and killed in return in a shootout with the police and the Mathews gang. Marve who had a bright future ends up behind bars with nothing to look forward too but a six by eight foot cell and a social security check when he's finally released from prison in some 30 to 50 years. It's sad that actor Tom Pittman died on Halloween 1958 in car smash-up on a California highway. Pittman's brief film career included his first movie in 1957 with director's John Frankenheimer's first motion picture "The Young Stranger" and his last cult director Samuell Fuller's very underrated and almost unknown post World War Two Germany classic "Verboten" in 1959 released, like High School Big Shot, the year after Pittman's death.