This movie almost defies analysis. It makes High School Confidential, its predecessor, look like Citizen Kane by comparison. There's the usual Albert Zugsmith stock company, plus almost forgotten columnists of the day, over-aged college students like Mamie Van Doren, the heavy moralizing and preaching that ruined so many movies of the Fifties and early Sixties, combined with a kind of peep show titillation. The odd thing is that it's actually quite dull, where HSC was riotously entertaining from beginning to end.
Other posters commented that the movie has no idea what it wants to be, and I think that comes across, with the confused mix of supposedly scandalous activities and preachy finger wagging. This would make for an interesting double feature with the outrageously sanctimonious and infuriatingly puritanical movie The Young Lovers, as indicative of the times it was made, just prior to the sexual revolution of the later Sixties.
Someone else said that it was embarrassing to watch, and I agree. There's a really odd, off key tone to this movie that is actually uncomfortable, rather than campy or foolish, so it ends up as just dreary and annoying, without even any real unintentional humor value. I can't imagine audiences of the time getting much entertainment out of this thing, but it does work as sort of a strange period piece.Recommended only for die hard Zugsmith and Mamie Van Doren fans; most people will be bored stiff.
Other posters commented that the movie has no idea what it wants to be, and I think that comes across, with the confused mix of supposedly scandalous activities and preachy finger wagging. This would make for an interesting double feature with the outrageously sanctimonious and infuriatingly puritanical movie The Young Lovers, as indicative of the times it was made, just prior to the sexual revolution of the later Sixties.
Someone else said that it was embarrassing to watch, and I agree. There's a really odd, off key tone to this movie that is actually uncomfortable, rather than campy or foolish, so it ends up as just dreary and annoying, without even any real unintentional humor value. I can't imagine audiences of the time getting much entertainment out of this thing, but it does work as sort of a strange period piece.Recommended only for die hard Zugsmith and Mamie Van Doren fans; most people will be bored stiff.