High School Confidential! (1958)

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In this hilariously dated morality play about the perils of marijuana use, Russ Tamblyn (West Side Story, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) plays the smart-ass new kid at school, losing no time offending the faculty while trying to climb to the top of the drug dealing hierarchy. Along the way he flirts with a teacher (Jan Sterling), avoids the incestuous overtures of his aunt (Mamie Van Doren), and courts a fellow student (Diane Jergens) who is so strung out on pot, she can barely keep it together.

High School Confidential! is wonderfully ridiculous in its demonizing of marijuana, a drug we all now know to be safe and therapeutic. The film depicts the effects of marijuana inaccurately — as though it were heroin or meth. But this lunacy is also part of the film’s campy charm. And even if you’re not into camp, the film has other merits, starting with a well-plotted screenplay that has some third act surprises, and a charismatic lead performance from young Tamblyn, fresh off an Oscar nomination for Peyton Place. Van Doren is delightfully over-the-top as the naughty aunt, too.

This film, directed by the great Jack Arnold (Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man), tries to emulate teen hits like Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle, complete with a late night drag race sequence and a Jerry Lee Lewis on-screen performance over the opening credits. But with its paranoid preaching about weed and honorific depiction of law enforcement, I’m sure ’50s youth must have hated this movie. It’s best viewed with a post-modern, ‘so bad it’s good’ kind of lens. If nothing else, you may enjoy the tsunami of bizarre ’50s slang littered throughout the script.

With supporting performances from two children of famous Hollywood directors: Charles Chaplin, Jr., and William Wellman, Jr., as well as future Little House on the Prairie star Michael Landon, and Jackie Coogan (The Kid).