greeted with ‘riots’ in some UK cinemas, and (astonishingly) The Wild One was banned by the British Board of Film Censors until 1967. Meanwhile, the affluent teenager took a little longer to appear on this side of the Atlantic, becoming apparent to researchers and social commentators only towards the end of the 1950s. Perhaps for some of these reasons, the British film industry’s response to the ‘problem’ of juvenile delinquency was generally rather more restrained, and perhaps even sedate, although it was by no means less contradictory.
Screening delinquency
How were these tensions and contradictions manifested in specific films? In this section, I consider the three Hollywood films that effectively initiated the JD cycle: The Wild One, Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause. These are all very well known and have been the subject of extensive critical commentary.11 Rather than offering a detailed analysis, my aim here is merely to contrast the three films in terms of their perspective and how they construct the figure of the ‘delinquent’: this then provides a context for the British films I go on to consider later in the chapter.
The Wild One, directed by Lásló Benedek and produced by Stanley Kramer, was released in 1953. It stars Marlon Brando (aged twenty-eight at the time of filming) as Johnny Strabler, the leader of a leather-clad motorcycle gang, the Black Rebels. The film is based on a true story about a small California town called Hollister that was apparently terrorized by such a gang – a story that was written up by the journalist Frank Rooney for Harper’s Magazine in 1951. Despite this basis in fact, the opening title is keen to reassure viewers:
This is a shocking story. It could never take place in most American towns – but it did in this one.
It is a public challenge not to let it happen again.
The claim recurs in Johnny’s opening voice-over: ‘It couldn’t happen again in a million years,’ he says. But the voice-over also reveals a little of the outcome of the story: after referring to ‘the whole mess’ and ‘the trouble’ that occurred, he tells us: ‘Mostly I remember the girl. I can’t explain it, a sad chick like that. But something changed in me, she got to me …’
As this implies, The Wild One, like many JD movies, is ultimately a story of redemption. On one level, Brando’s Johnny is charismatic, cool and sexy. He appears to spend his life (or at least his weekends) travelling aimlessly from place to place with the gang: ‘You just go,’ he says. He is a natural leader whose authority is unquestioned by the other members, and he easily outfights the leader of a rival gang. He speaks in a kind of hip jive talk, and his drawled one-liners are like comic epigrams – most famously in his exchange with a local girl. ‘What are you rebelling against?’ she asks. ‘Whatta you got?’ he replies.
Johnny’s contempt for authority is clearly part of his appeal. He defines himself as an ‘outlaw’ and refuses to make a deal with the sheriff to leave the town quietly – ‘Nobody tells me what to do.’ The sheriff is represented as weak and ineffectual: the other inhabitants urge him to run the gang out of town, accusing him of being ‘too soft-hearted’. The vigilantes eventually take matters into their own hands and beat Johnny up just as he is about to leave: ‘Someone needed to beat some respect for law and authority into him,’ one of them says. Yet this authoritarian approach ends in disaster when they knock Johnny off his bike, causing the death of an elderly resident.
However, the ultimate judgement on Johnny is delivered by Kathie, the girl he meets in the town bar (and who happens to be the sheriff’s daughter). Despite her conventional appearance, Johnny is attracted to her in preference to the more available biker girls who are pursuing him; but, at least initially, she dismisses him as a ‘fake’. At one point, Johnny apparently rescues Kathie from being assaulted by other members of the gang, but his initial romantic overtures towards her are clumsy and violent. Meanwhile, throughout the movie, he spends a good deal of time clutching a trophy, which the townspeople believe he has won at a motorbike contest, but which is actually stolen: it is a kind of emblem of his lack of authenticity. Towards the end of the movie, the sheriff finally asserts himself, telling Johnny: ‘I don’t get your act at all. And I don’t think you do either. I don’t think you know what you’re trying to do, or how to go about it.’
In the final scene, Johnny returns to the bar, where he presents Kathie with a gift of the stolen trophy, before driving off. As evidence of Johnny’s redemption, this conclusion isn’t wholly convincing: the sheriff’s authority has already been undermined, the trophy is stolen in the first place, and we don’t see any kind of romantic consummation between Johnny and Kathie. Even so, all these things work to undermine any potential identification with Johnny: he is undeniably cool, but he is also somewhat of a phoney.
Ultimately, the reasons for Johnny’s ‘delinquency’ are not explained. Brando’s method-acting performance is all about troubled frowns, distant stares and mumbled complaints, but there is little indication of any psychological or sociological causes of his behaviour. The authoritarian response of the townspeople is clearly rejected, but the more ‘soft-hearted’, liberal approach of the sheriff is also less than effective. In the end, it would seem that only romantic love can redeem the likes of Johnny – although this too seems faintly implausible.
By contrast, Blackboard Jungle (directed by Richard Brooks from the novel by Evan Hunter, and released in 1955) is much more explicitly a ‘social problem’ film. Before the opening credits, over a soundtrack of military drumming, the following message scrolls:
We, in the United States, are fortunate to have a school system that is a tribute to our communities and to our faith in American youth.
Today we are concerned with juvenile delinquency – its causes – and its effects. We are especially concerned when this delinquency boils over into our schools.
The scenes and incidents depicted here are fictional. However, we believe that public awareness is a first step toward a remedy for any problem.
It is in this spirit and with this faith that BLACKBOARD JUNGLE was produced.
However, as the message fades into the opening credits, the drumming gives way to Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around the Clock’ – a tune that seems to have been included in the hope of increasing its appeal to the younger audience. (It may well have been this, rather than anything about the film itself, that prompted the ‘riots’ that occurred on its release in the UK – as we’ll see in the following chapter.)
Unlike the other two films considered here, the central focus of Blackboard Jungle is not on the delinquents but on their teacher, Richard Dadier (played by Glenn Ford). The narrative follows Dadier as he confronts a recalcitrant high-school class in a racially mixed, working-class area of the city; and it also follows him into the staff room and into his home. We are told about the home environments of his students, but we do not see anything of them. The narrative is driven by questions about Dadier’s dedication to his task: will he become disillusioned and leave the teaching profession, or will he move to an easier, more middle-class school ‘where the children want to learn’ (an opportunity he is offered by his former professor)? In parallel with this is an element of suspense introduced right at the start of the film. Dadier’s wife is pregnant, but she has previously lost a baby. She narrowly avoids a car crash and subsequently comes under pressure when one of Dadier’s students sends her anonymous messages alleging that her husband is having an affair with one of the other teachers: Dadier is afraid that she will lose the baby once again.
The narrative of the film is essentially a series of tests of Dadier’s dedication. He saves a woman teacher from being assaulted, he and
