High School Confidential (1958)

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Fanning the flames of Eisenhower America's growing paranoia, Jack Arnold's HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL! Is the quintessential juvenile delinquency film - celebrating the very sex-drugs-and-rock'n'roll culture it pretends to condemn. Russ Tamblyn (WEST SIDE STORY) stars as Tony Baker, the new kid at Santa Bellow High, whose cocky attitude and ambitious weed-dealing enable him to infiltrate the gang of a local narcotics boss (Jackie Coogan). But HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL! Is much more than a hardboiled crime picture. It's is a pop-culture touchstone, a Rebel Without a Cause without the angst, embellished by the insanely shapely Mamie Van Doren, beat poetry for the hip set, and, of course, the throbbing theme music of Jerry Lee Lewis.