How can you not like a film in which perennial crumb Dick Bakalyan has top billing? Quite easily, as it turns out.
Dick plays Duke. He and two of his pals try to rip off a car, to no avail. So he tells them he is off to his date with Peg (June Kenney), which earns this reaction:
"You're sure askin' for grief with that chick, Duke. She ain't only a square, she's a cube." "So I'll round the corners off!"
Perhaps this explains the derivation of the expression "you can't put a square peg in a round hole." Well, actually you can (Euclid's Elements, Book IV, Proposition VI).
Dick takes Peg to a hangout, and plies her with booze. Ten minutes later, he seals the deal - at least, I assume that's what the director meant when we see Dick kick over the liquor bottle while he is trying to remove June's tonsils. Hey, I suppose after a few belts of Jack Daniels, even Dick looks decent.
Eventually, the plot develops. Dick-Duke and June-Peg are driving along, when Dick decides to drag-race another chick (Jana Lund) along Sepulveda Boulevard. A motorcycle cop chases them, and ends up flipping his bike. It's more like he slides gently off his bike, but he goes belly up anyway. So now the cops are in hot pursuit of the two juveniles. At this point, the movie should have been arrested for impersonating entertainment.
The police get the brilliant 1950's idea of using Lund as a decoy. Amazingly, her father suggests they plant a story that she can identify Dick and June. There are at least two problems with this scenario: 1) they apparently don't let Lund in on it, and 2) no decoy ever survives this unless she looks like Rhonda Fleming. Now June phones Lund and asks to meet her, telling her she wants to help a friend in trouble. So dumb-bunny Lund drives to the middle of nowhere without telling anyone, and discovers that June was the dame in the other car that day. Of course, Dick is hiding in the car. Next, Lund tries to write down the license plate of the car. It never occurs to her to get her butt out of there.
On the lam, Dick steals a couple of cars, and tells June the real reason for his crimes; seems when he was 15, some cops took him in a "back room" and beat him up. Actually, this is one of the few interesting scenes in the film.
Eventually, Dick holes up in a cave which looks suspiciously like the one used by "Robot Monster." He cuts June loose, and the cops arrive for the inevitable shootout. They find a note written by Dick which clears June of any crimes. It is never explained how Dick finds paper and a writing instrument inside a cave.
The film's Executive Producer was Roger Corman, which probably explains why some of his stock players show up, like Bruno ve Sota as a junk dealer, and Ed Nelson as a cop who gets locked out of his own car by Bakalyan. Corman has a cameo as a cop at the end of the film. The script is by actor Leo Gordon, who also penned the classic "Attack of the Giant Leeches."
June Kenney is cute, and her acting is pretty good. Bakalyan doesn't look as a bad as he usually does; I think the makeup department cut back on his ducktail and widow's peak. Lund is wasted as an idiot; she looked much better (and sexier) in "Frankenstein 1970."
Dick plays Duke. He and two of his pals try to rip off a car, to no avail. So he tells them he is off to his date with Peg (June Kenney), which earns this reaction:
"You're sure askin' for grief with that chick, Duke. She ain't only a square, she's a cube." "So I'll round the corners off!"
Perhaps this explains the derivation of the expression "you can't put a square peg in a round hole." Well, actually you can (Euclid's Elements, Book IV, Proposition VI).
Dick takes Peg to a hangout, and plies her with booze. Ten minutes later, he seals the deal - at least, I assume that's what the director meant when we see Dick kick over the liquor bottle while he is trying to remove June's tonsils. Hey, I suppose after a few belts of Jack Daniels, even Dick looks decent.
Eventually, the plot develops. Dick-Duke and June-Peg are driving along, when Dick decides to drag-race another chick (Jana Lund) along Sepulveda Boulevard. A motorcycle cop chases them, and ends up flipping his bike. It's more like he slides gently off his bike, but he goes belly up anyway. So now the cops are in hot pursuit of the two juveniles. At this point, the movie should have been arrested for impersonating entertainment.
The police get the brilliant 1950's idea of using Lund as a decoy. Amazingly, her father suggests they plant a story that she can identify Dick and June. There are at least two problems with this scenario: 1) they apparently don't let Lund in on it, and 2) no decoy ever survives this unless she looks like Rhonda Fleming. Now June phones Lund and asks to meet her, telling her she wants to help a friend in trouble. So dumb-bunny Lund drives to the middle of nowhere without telling anyone, and discovers that June was the dame in the other car that day. Of course, Dick is hiding in the car. Next, Lund tries to write down the license plate of the car. It never occurs to her to get her butt out of there.
On the lam, Dick steals a couple of cars, and tells June the real reason for his crimes; seems when he was 15, some cops took him in a "back room" and beat him up. Actually, this is one of the few interesting scenes in the film.
Eventually, Dick holes up in a cave which looks suspiciously like the one used by "Robot Monster." He cuts June loose, and the cops arrive for the inevitable shootout. They find a note written by Dick which clears June of any crimes. It is never explained how Dick finds paper and a writing instrument inside a cave.
The film's Executive Producer was Roger Corman, which probably explains why some of his stock players show up, like Bruno ve Sota as a junk dealer, and Ed Nelson as a cop who gets locked out of his own car by Bakalyan. Corman has a cameo as a cop at the end of the film. The script is by actor Leo Gordon, who also penned the classic "Attack of the Giant Leeches."
June Kenney is cute, and her acting is pretty good. Bakalyan doesn't look as a bad as he usually does; I think the makeup department cut back on his ducktail and widow's peak. Lund is wasted as an idiot; she looked much better (and sexier) in "Frankenstein 1970."