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Tonight begins my new series at Doc Films titled I Was a Teenage Film: The Birth of American Teen Cinema. It runs every Monday night at 7:00 until May 31st. It's about as definitive an Evan-series as you can get, featuring some of my favorite teenage-oriented flicks from the '50s and '60s. My dream was to have a series devoted entirely to beach party movies, but this'll have to do! At least we'll get Beach Blanket Bingo in there - don't miss that one!

Doc Films is located in Ida Noyes Hall at 1212 E. 59th St. in Chicago. Tickets are just $5, or you can get a pass for all 80-or-so films in the quarter for only $30.

Here's the series at a glance, plus my essay for the newsletter and descriptions of each film:

Mar. 29 - The Wild One
Apr. 5 - Blackboard Jungle
Apr. 12 - Rebel Without a Cause
Apr. 19 - Gidget
Apr. 26 - Don't Knock the Rock
May 3 - West Side Story
May 10 - David and Lisa
May 17 - Eegah!
May 24 - Beach Blanket Bingo
May 31 - Lord Love a Duck

I Was a Teenage Film

The Birth of American Teen Cinema

Just before the more celebrated baby boom, there was already a surge of children born in America during the Second World War. Once these children reached their teen years in the 1950s, they benefited from unprecedented economic prosperity. As American families migrated toward the suburbs, teenagers entered a car-based consumer culture, enjoying independence and mobility they never had before. They had a means to get places, time to kill, and money to spend – and film exhibitors were quick to provide a place for them to spend it. In the 1950s and ‘60s, a whole new category of film emerged, targeted specifically at a new teenage market. The early films of teen cinema are certainly of their time, but they had an enduring effect on the way Hollywood movies are marketed to this day.

But beyond the implications it had for the film industry, the birth of teen cinema represents a much more important historical moment. It marks the beginning of the very idea of teenagers itself. Certainly, humans aged thirteen to nineteen existed before the Eisenhower administration, but never before had they been viewed as a distinct group rather than simply an extension of childhood or a precursor to adulthood. Teenagers were developing their own tastes, their own values, their own idols. Restless and misunderstood, American teens found themselves at the beginning of a generational conflict that would build throughout the ‘60s, even if the media’s fear-mongering about a supposed juvenile delinquency epidemic was exaggerated.

The most significant act of teenage rebellion, whether intentional or not, was their embrace of a loud form of African-American rhythm and blues known as rock ‘n’ roll. The inclusion of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” over the opening titles of Blackboard Jungle marked a true cultural sea change, with a reception comparable to the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, complete with riots in cinemas across the nation. Haley, a portly white country singer, was hardly one of the most threatening of rock’s early stars, but the film industry’s capitalization on the trend helped bring exposure to wilder rock ‘n’ rollers like Little Richard, who appears with Haley in Don’t Knock the Rock. Little Richard epitomized the brilliance – and the threat – of rock ‘n’ roll, flamboyantly juxtaposing gospel shouts with raucous piano-playing in songs with coded lyrics about anal sex.

Though the teenage rock rebellion may have been genuine, the rock movies of the ‘50s are an early example of the film industry learning how rebellion could be commodified. The protagonists within the films proclaimed that rock ‘n’ roll was here to stay, yet the studios themselves perceived the music as just another fad. Most teen movies were inexpensive formula pictures with salacious titles churned out as quickly as possible to exploit the latest teenage trend, or to anticipate the next one (there was even a short-lived wave of movies predicting calypso as rock’s successor). With a growing number of drive-in theatres needing double features to show, the demand for these cheapies offered tremendous new opportunities for independent producers. Many found great success in the horror realm, making countless films with teen protagonists and outlandish monsters, combining youth rebellion with the Cold War fear of technology. Eegah!, the horror entry in this series, is certainly one of the strangest of them all, becoming a cult classic long after its initial release.

The most successful of the independent teen movie studios was American International Pictures. Led by Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson, AIP produced inexpensive yet extremely lucrative titles for teenagers over multiple decades. They had tremendous success early on with teen horror films like I Was a Teenage Werewolf and The Curse of Frankenstein, but astutely branched out into dozens of other subgenres. In 1963, they cashed in on the emerging surf craze, enlisting teen idol Frankie Avalon and former Mouseketeer Annette Funicello to star in the hugely popular Beach Party. Though Gidget was an important forerunner, Beach Party established the formula for an entire genre of beach party movies. AIP ultimately produced seven, including the wonderful Beach Blanket Bingo, while virtually every other American studio churned out imitations by the dozen. The beach party movies were always essentially self-parody from the start, but they would be further satirized in George Axelrod’s 1966 black comedy Lord Love a Duck.

Not all the teen pictures from the era, however, were exploitation films directed explicitly toward teenage audiences. Many Hollywood films, like Peyton Place and A Summer Place, focused on the changing state of the American family and the teenager’s role within it and were either marketed directly at adults or aimed for cross-generational appeal. Nicholas Ray’s moving Rebel Without a Cause was an exemplary attempt to portray and understand the anxieties of teen culture. Dying tragically in a car crash before the film’s release, James Dean became the definitive teen icon, carrying the mantle of Marlon Brando’s rebellious motorcycle gang leader in The Wild One from the year before. Like Rebel, Frank Perry’s quiet independent feature David and Lisa showed considerable understanding of troubled American youth, though the film has since suffered undue neglect. By contrast, the popularity of West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein’s musical about teenage star-crossed lovers, has never waned.

Good fortune has put this series on the same calendar as our John Hughes retrospective, offering us a view of teen cinema’s birth as well as its artistic zenith. By looking at the cinematic evidence of the creation of teendom, we’re able to see the origin of the truths that Hughes understood so intuitively: that the world of teenagers is a distinct, self-contained universe, governed by its own set of complex rules; that high school life is no mere “microcosm” of the real world, but is the realest world we get, where the stakes are higher, and everything feels more important - because it is.

The Films

Monday, March 29 at 7:00 • 79m
The Wild One
László Benedek, 1954 • “What’re you rebelling against, Johnny?” “Whaddya got?” Marlon Brando’s performance as the leader of a delinquent motorcycle gang was almost too wild for teens in 1954, but it served as an important prototype for the teenpics that followed. When the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club invades a small town, they soon find themselves in fierce conflict with a rival biker gang led by Lee Marvin. The image of a leather-clad Brando astride a Triumph motorcycle has persisted as an icon of youth rebellion, subsequently adopted and amended by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and Kenneth Anger in Scorpio Rising. 35mm

Monday, April 5 at 7:00 • 100m
Blackboard Jungle
Richard Brooks, 1955 • In this important early teen film, Glenn Ford plays an idealistic English teacher at an inner-city school who struggles to gain the respect of his unruly students, including Sidney Poitier and Vic Morrow. Though the plot sounds familiar today, the film’s frank portrayal of juvenile delinquency and race issues, along with its rock ‘n’ roll score, was at the time sensational. Teens were driven to riot at several screenings, destroying the cinema interiors. One theatre even played the first reel silently for fear that Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” over the opening credits would incite the audience. 35mm

Monday, April 12 at 7:00 • 111m
Rebel Without A Cause
Nicholas Ray, 1955 • James Dean’s tragic death has only served to freeze him in time as the perennial teenage icon, a martyr for disaffected American youth. Rejected by his peers and let down by his ineffective parents, Dean’s Jim Stark instead founds a surrogate family with fellow outcasts Judy (Natalie Wood) and Plato (Sal Mineo). Nicholas Ray shows a deep understanding of teenage alienation, reaching across the generational divide that even the film’s most well-meaning adult characters are unable to bridge. Shot in gorgeous Cinemascope, Rebel is not only the definitive teen movie but also one of the decade’s greatest films. 16mm

Monday, April 19 at 7:00 • 95m
Gidget
Paul Wendkos, 1959 • Sandra Dee’s first starring role was in this adaptation of a popular young adult novel about a girl who is introduced to surfing life by a Malibu gang led by The Kahuna (Cliff Robertson), but falls for surfer Moondoggie (James Darren). Gidget’s fun-in-the-sun attitude and great pop music (by The Four Preps!) laid the groundwork for the later beach party movies, but its earnest chronicling of a teen’s coming of age makes it sweeter and more down-to-earth than the follow-ups. A nationwide obsession with surf culture and several sequels followed. Archival 35mm

Monday, April 26 at 7:00 • 84m
Don’t Knock the Rock!
Fred F. Sears, 1956 • When white teenagers discovered the rock ‘n’ roll music championed by disc jockeys like Alan Freed in the mid-‘50s, it caused a wave of controversy among their concerned parents. Filmmakers were quick to exploit that controversy, marketing rock films toward teens, while also making pleas to grown-ups to embrace the new sensation. In Don’t Knock the Rock, Freed plays himself, a mediating adult figure defending a teen idol against attacks from a town who wants to ban his music. The film features classic performances by Bill Haley & His Comets and also helped introduce Little Richard to a wide audience. Archival 35mm

Monday, May 3 at 7:00 • 150m
West Side Story
Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise, 1961 • This musical transplantation of Romeo and Juliet into the ethnic warfare between teenage gangs in New York was already a Broadway hit before its popular film adaptation. Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer are fine as the leads, but the supporting cast led by Rita Moreno and Russ Tamblyn is truly exceptional. Leonard Bernstein’s score is one of the great works of 20th-century American art, with songs like “Somewhere” and “Tonight” since becoming enduring standards. He’s assisted by witty lyrics from a young Stephen Sondheim and the inimitable choreography of co-director Jerome Robbins. 35mm

Monday, May 10 at 7:00 • 95m
David and Lisa
Frank Perry, 1962 • Perry's neglected low-budget debut feature follows a troubled teen sent to a mental institution, where a schizophrenic girl helps him confront his problems. This nuanced look at youth mental illness stands in stark contrast to Elia Kazan’s absurdly over-the-top portrayal in Splendor in the Grass one year earlier. Jean Renoir called the movie a turning point in the history of film, saying it achieved “by means of very high caliber, extremely moving actors… a certain contact with the director, which is, all things considered, the essence of art.” 35mm

Monday, May 17 at 7:00 • 90m
Eegah!
Arch Hall, Sr., 1962 • Of the many bizarre horror films churned out on the cheap for teenage drive-in audiences, Eegah! is certainly one of the strangest. Writer/director/producer Arch Hall, Sr. designed the film as a vehicle for his son Arch Hall, Jr. who plays a rock ‘n’ roller attempting to rescue his girlfriend from a caveman (Richard Kiel) who has captured her in his desert cave (the same cave in fact doubled as Ro-Man’s lair in another cult movie, Robot Monster). Eegah! is a classic example of how the emergence of teen cinema opened up new opportunities for independent, low-budget filmmakers. Watch out for snakes! Archival 35mm

Monday, May 24 at 7:00 • 98m
Beach Blanket Bingo
William Asher, 1965 • AIP’s delightful cycle of beach party movies starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon created an entire genre, with countless imitators of its colorful bend of surfing, teen pop, and broad comedy. In the fifth and best film of the series, Frankie, Dee Dee, and the usual gang of teens become obsessed with skydiving after seeing singer Sugar Kane (Linda Evans) attempt it as a publicity stunt. Dee Dee meanwhile becomes jealous of Frankie’s attentions for one of Sugar’s sidekicks. A goofy motorcycle gang led by Eric Von Zipper also shows up. So does a mermaid. And Buster Keaton. It’s, like, the best. 35mm

Monday, May 31 at 7:00 • 109m
Lord Love a Duck
George Axelrod, 1966 • A unique and virtually indescribable film, Lord Love a Duck is a manic yet unusually sophisticated black comedy that satirizes the entirety of teenage culture in the ‘60s. Tuesday Weld stars as Barbara Ann, a teenager who signs a pact with a Svengali-like classmate (Roddy McDowall) to help her achieve social success, including by helping her acquire the 12 cashmere sweaters necessary to join an exclusive all-girl club. The film lashes out in all directions at various topical concerns, lampooning the beach party genre, American consumerism, and even old men’s sexual obsession with younger girls. 35mm

I posted the other day about the 1966 film Georgy Girl and its classic title song. The film was also adapted into a notoriously unsuccessful Broadway musical called simply Georgy (it ran for a total of four performances in 1970). The brilliant yet terrifying iTunes shuffle just reminded me of the musical by playing a song from it covered by The Free Design, a great sunshine pop vocal group from the '60s and '70s who have seen a considerable revival of interest in the past ten years. It's the only song I've ever heard from the musical, but I love it!

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The Free Design - Howdjadoo (Fly Me Down) [from Georgy] [mp3]

Time to finally revive Children of the Future, my long languishing archive of bizarre stories by grade school children taken from their class websites. Here's a classic essay from the old site by Jeremiah:

My Possibility of imagining is to imagine my aunt being married to The Rock (a famous pro-wrestler). If they get married, the Rock will be my new uncle. My aunt likes the Rock.

My aunt has a lot of Rock collections. She has her own room that is covered with the Rock. She has the Rock Book, blanket, magazine, Valentines Cards taped to her mirror, posters, a poster that she made of the Rock, a Rock necklace, Rock shirt, the bramo bull tattoo that the Rock has, and a lot of other stuff that I can’t even name.

On July of 1998 my aunt, 5 of my cousins, and I went to the arena to see the Rock, wrestle just for my aunt to see. My cousins and I were wearing wrestling shirts. My aunt was wearing her jump suit.

Every Thursday at 7:30pm my aunt hop’s in the shower to get washed up for the Rock on smack down at 8:00pm. She puts on her Rock pajamas and gets ready for the Rock. She makes her own sign that says
MY SEAT ISN"T ANY GOOD! You know when you’re at home and not at the smack down.

In conclusion, you should see my aunt’s room and her self to believe it. So what do you think about my paper? Can ya smell what the Rock is cookin!

The screening of Georgy Girl in my British New Wave series at Doc Films this quarter has been cursed with audio problems. The failure of an amp in the cinema forced us to cancel the initial screening. Last night, our make-up screening caused a moment of panic when we started playing the first reel and discovered that the soundtrack was physically missing from the print. We weren't sure if it was missing from just a portion of the reel, or if the whole first 20 minutes would have to be projected silently. Fortunately, as we let it run, we found that only the opening credits sequence (and later the closing credits) were silent.

This means, however, that we missed out on hearing the hit title song by The Seekers, a folk-pop group from Australia that were hugely popular for a while in the '60s. They coincided and were sometimes associated with the British Invasion, but sound more like an updated but less politically conscious version of The Weavers, along the lines of similar American groups like We Five and The Stone Poneys. "Georgy Girl" was their biggest hit in America, peaking at #2 on February 4, 1967, with "I'm a Believer" by The Monkees keeping it from the top. The music was written by Tom Springfield, brother of Dusty, and the lyrics were actually by the actor Jim Dale, best known for the Carry On films and for his really remarkable work on the Harry Potter audiobooks. Since it wasn't in the screening last night, here it is now:

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The Seekers - Georgy Girl [mp3]

There is a commercial where an incredibly smug man brags about knowing exactly what he wants to order at the Olive Garden without even having to consult a menu.

This is the worst man in the world.

This is what I need to start a Doc screening with:

I love how it even fits the color scheme of the site. Thanks, Ralph!