Mad at the World

This begins with Wolf-Pack gang members...no, wait it begins with a prologue spoken by Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver saying..."When young people become angry and violent, it affects the whole community...your town and mine. Anger breeds anger, until finally it sweeps over all age groups. Here now, is a story of how one police department in a great American city fought to bring this destructive human fire under control"...and then Wolf-Pack gang members Paul Dubov, James Delgado, and Spanley Clements go "on the town" and make an unprovoked attack on a young family.

The infant baby of Keefe Brasselle and Cathy O'Donnell is critically hurt after been hit by a bottle thrown by the hoodlums. Police Detective Frank Lovejoy takes charge of the investigation. Orders shakedown of youth gangs in the city's toughest section---pick up Aaron Spelling for one---but this fails to locate members of the Wolf-Pack gang. Savage beating is given innocent witness by Brasselle, who takes matters in his own hands in the belief that the law authorities are too slow. Plausible. Brasselle slugs Lovejoy and rushes out to make a one-man probe of the gang. Still plausible. Brasselle locates Karen Sharpe, girlfriend of the Wolf-Packers, and she says she likes being useful and what can she do for Brasselle. He asks her to get him into the gang.

Karen Sharpe is leaning over her bed and asks Brasselle what can she do to be "useful" and all he asks for is an address? Not plausible.

Keefe Brasselle and Cathy O'Donnell are young, in love, and have a fine baby boy. But when some juvenile delinquents go through their neighborhood, one of them throws a bottle and puts the infant in the hospital, with his fate unknown. The police, in the person of Frank Lovejoy, has feeble leads. Lovejoy wants to know not just who, but why, so he talks with social worker Maidie Norman. All she has is a bunch of theories, none of which convince even her.

Brasselle can't stand not knowing. He disappears into the neighborhood where the JDs are. Luncheonette waitress Karen Sharpe likes him and takes him meet the boys, one of whom, Brasselle is convinced, threw the bottle. But which one? And will they figure out who he is?

While it's concentrating on the story, it's a nice little film, even if Brasselle seems absent from it, even his own grief and anger. However, when it gets into the philosophical nitty-gritty, the reason why these youngsters are savages, it falls apart, into self-pitying incoherence which convinces Lovejoy, but not me. Maybe Miss Norman is right, and there are a thousand paths to violence, each trod by an individual. Or maybe there is no reason for it, and we are naturally savage, with some of us tamed. Better, perhaps, to leave that part out, or leave it unsolved, and get on with the story.

During the 1950s, films warning parents about juvenile delinquents abounded. While there were similar films made in the 30s and 40s, the 50s really took off. Again and again, films about leather jacket-clad hoodlums were offered because the films were cheap to make and somehow resonated with audiences. Seen today, most of them seem incredibly tame when it comes to these 'reckless youth'....and this is especially true of the most famous of these, "The Wild One". But "The Wild One" was a higher budgeted film starring some top Hollywood talent...the average one was ultra cheap and starred mostly unknowns. "Mad at the World" is ultra cheap but at least manages to have Frank Lovejoy (mostly forgotten today but a top talent in his day) in the lead. Otherwise...it's just cheap and could have been so much better.

The story is set in Chicago. A detective (Lovejoy) is working on a case involving a gang, 'The Wolf Pack'. Their latest outrage is tossing a bottle at a baby...and the child is now fighting for its life. The problem is that the baby's father doesn't think the cops are working hard enough...and he's out to find and punish the punks himself.

You can tell that this is a cheap and sensationalistic film when it begins with a mini-lecture from Senator Kefauver (a BIG wig in Congress in his day)...as well as a narrated introduction by Lovejoy. This means that it won't just be sensationalistic...but preachy as well.

One thing the film is not...and that's a law & order story where the cops believe in beating the teens into respecting the law. Instead, Lovejoy plays a progressive detective...one who is slow to anger and is concerned about root causes to the problems. This does, at times, comes off as very idealistic but at least it's not the usual heavy-handed story.

So despite the rough acting, lousy cinematography and an overall cheap look, is it worth seeing? Yes. It certainly is NOT good, comes off as preachy at the beginning BUT also picks up more as the story progresses...even if the vigilante father couldn't act if his life depended on it! Mildly interesting and worth seeing IF you like exploitation films.

By the way, like nearly all exploitation films, the 'teens' look to be about 25-30! One of them, interestingly, is played by Aaron Spelling...who later became immensely wealthy as a producer.