***SPOILERS*** 1959 troubled youth movie with the entire cast of juvenile delinquents made up of white clean cut looking collage boys & girls with not a single inner city-Hispanic & African/America-teen in sight has bad boy Eddie Bassett, Scott Marlowe, lead not one but two major revolts against the prison administration that has him finally realize just how futile his efforts were. That's when Eddie and his fellow convicts are surrounded by the police and national guard in the warden's office and about to be blown to bits. This all started earlier when Eddie staged his first prison escape when two of his fellow prisoners were gunned down, after shooting at the prison guards,by prison guard Andy, Richard Reeves.
It's when prison psychiatrist Paul A. Furman,Jerome Thor, was put in charge of the "Joint" his policy of treating the unruly teenagers like human beings not hard core convicts that the response to it was amazing. At first not starting any trouble and getting along with each other-The prisoners and prison guards-trouble soon started brewing when Dr. Furman introduced women convicts into the place to keep the sex starved boys entertained. That blew Dr. Furman's plan to keep order in the place with the sex crazed Stu Killion, Richard Tyler,losing it during a Saturday night dance and attacking and raping woman prisoner Kitty Anderson,Virgina Aldridge,in the men's locker room.
Eddie who already was in hot water when he and his boys attacked and worked over Dr. Furman, who refused to press charges, now got into a deeper hole when he started a second uprising at the "Joint" in order to get his hands on prison guard Andy whom he held responsible for gunning down two of his friends while trying to escape! the revolt fizzled out when Dr. Furman, letting bygones be bygones, in risking his life talked Eddie and his fellow prisoners to give themselves up before things really got out of hand and someone got killed.
One of the many troubled youth movies to come out of the 1950's Hollywood that went out of its way to show youths like Eddie in a positive light not in what they did but in the reasons that made them that way. In Eddie's case it's revealed under hypnosis that he was traumatized at a young age when on his 7th birthday his drunken father coming home from work smashed his head in while his mom, who was too drunk to help him, just sat by and did nothing!
It's when prison psychiatrist Paul A. Furman,Jerome Thor, was put in charge of the "Joint" his policy of treating the unruly teenagers like human beings not hard core convicts that the response to it was amazing. At first not starting any trouble and getting along with each other-The prisoners and prison guards-trouble soon started brewing when Dr. Furman introduced women convicts into the place to keep the sex starved boys entertained. That blew Dr. Furman's plan to keep order in the place with the sex crazed Stu Killion, Richard Tyler,losing it during a Saturday night dance and attacking and raping woman prisoner Kitty Anderson,Virgina Aldridge,in the men's locker room.
Eddie who already was in hot water when he and his boys attacked and worked over Dr. Furman, who refused to press charges, now got into a deeper hole when he started a second uprising at the "Joint" in order to get his hands on prison guard Andy whom he held responsible for gunning down two of his friends while trying to escape! the revolt fizzled out when Dr. Furman, letting bygones be bygones, in risking his life talked Eddie and his fellow prisoners to give themselves up before things really got out of hand and someone got killed.
One of the many troubled youth movies to come out of the 1950's Hollywood that went out of its way to show youths like Eddie in a positive light not in what they did but in the reasons that made them that way. In Eddie's case it's revealed under hypnosis that he was traumatized at a young age when on his 7th birthday his drunken father coming home from work smashed his head in while his mom, who was too drunk to help him, just sat by and did nothing!
