The Cry Baby Killer (Back-to-Back Jack Edition)

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre noir Starring Harry Lauter, Jack Nicholson, Carolyn Mitchell, Brett Halsey, Lynn Cartwright, Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Dick Miller, Myrtle Vail Directed by Roger Corman, Jus Addiss Publisher Buena Vista Home Entertainment External Links Official Disney DVD Website

So, yeah, Jack Nicholson is one of those larger than life actors that always seems to play "Jack", but as he does it so damn well, you can't complain. He has an immense self-confidence as a person and an actor, that it would be hard to imagine a young Jack hungry for that first break-through role. Thanks to an acting class in which Roger Corman was a fellow student, Jack got his break in The Cry Baby Killer. Everyone thinks of Easy Rider as the first Jack moment, and that is definitely the "break-through", but his first starring role is as an insecure teenager caught in circumstances that force him to take a woman and her baby hostage.

The Cry Baby Killer is largely forgettable, and if it didn't have Jack Nicholson in it, I am sure that it would have been forgotten entirely. However, is does serve as a time capsule for that period in the late '50's when the "teenager" takes center stage in American cinema. As I could find few other redeeming qualities to focus on in this review, I found interest in the examination of the historical and social period it shows. Much like The Wild Ones (though The Wild Ones did it so much better), The Cry Baby Killer is a story that results from good kids gone bad.

Jack Nicholson plays Jimmy Wallis, and the first time we see young Jimmy, he is being beaten in an alley. We soon find out that the gang that beat him up are the lackeys of a jerk named Manny. Manny has just stolen Jimmy's girlfriend, Carol, and doesn't want Jimmy interfering in his corruption of said girl. Jimmy knows that Manny is no good, as we see as well when Manny pours some liquor in Carol's coke at the diner where most of the movie takes place. Anyway, there is a gun and another assault when Jimmy won't take the hint. During a fight, Jimmy gets the gun and shoots an attacker, and a cop, perpetually at the diner hitting on the waitress, confronts him, forcing Jimmy to flee into a storage shed where Sam, the African-American "kitchen man" and a mother and child are hiding from the gunshots.

You would think that Jimmy would have explained, "Hey, I was being attacked, and this whole thing was self-defense," but no, he takes hostages and thus the crisis begins. What the viewer gets out of all of this is that teens are running wild and it's the parents' fault. Oh, and the cops are to blame as well. It is indicative of the late 1950's when the baby boomers started scaring the older generations, voiced eloquently by a member of the crowd (the film's screenwriter in a cameo) watching this whole scenario, "Teenagers...we didn't have 'em when I was a kid."

Roger Corman, the king of independent film, produced this gem during that period when the man was pumping out something like 500 films a year. Okay, that number may be a bit high, but you get the point. The director was a poor choice as he slowed the pacing down with awkward pauses and delays in reactions, and maybe Corman was simply phoning in his role as exec, but The Cry Baby Killer is kind of painful to watch at times. The villain, Manny, disappears half-way and nobody ever really acknowledges the idea that Jimmy was a victim when everything is all over. There are a couple of attempts to resolve the situation and all are rather lame, and the suspense relies on those awkward pauses I referred to earlier. The ending is unsatisfying, and actually made me somewhat angry, as I was hoping that Jimmy would be ultimately vindicated, but no, the movie just ends with no real resolution.

I wish I could say that at least Jack did a good job, but I can only say that he tried. The material was pretty lame, and if the direction and pacing were better, he may not have come across as so slow. However, the cast in general were of the C- or D-movie variety. The kid who plays Manny's toady and the girl playing Carol are especially bad. Jack comes across as the strongest member of the cast, and you can see how and why he would go on to bigger and better. Luckily, the film is only 61 minutes long, so the pain does end quickly enough. The Cry Baby Killer does have one redeeming quality, in that the DVD has a special bonus feature involved: The Little Shop of Horrors.

Whereas The Cry Baby Killer suffered terrible pacing, The Little Shop of Horrors makes the DVD worth purchasing. It is supposedly the record holder in shortest shooting schedule in film history (two days and one night), and the frenetic pacing of the production comes across in the film itself. It is somewhat madcap at times, even though the story is fairly gruesome in nature.

The Little Shop of Horrors could not be more different from The Cry Baby Killer. The cast is excellent, and the direction is charmingly upbeat. At the center of all that goodness is an evil called Audrey Junior, a cross-breed of a Venus fly trap that has a taste for larger prey. The man-boy responsible for this monstrosity of Seymour Krelboyne (which if you have ever wondered where "Malcolm on the Middle" got the term for geeks from, this is it). Seymour is an inspiring horticulturalist who dreams of fame for developing a, hee hee, plant. Now, be warned, the story is so hokey, it's funny and charming.

The Little Shop of Horrors in its original form was not a musical with Steve Martin. It is supposed to be a horror film, a loose sequel to screenwriter Charles B. Griffith's "Bucket of Blood"...okay, maybe "horror" isn't the right genre, but it's definitely a black comedy then, and a B-movie on top of that. However, it is a gem, simply for the myriad characters that steal every scene, from Dick Miller's "crazy for Kosher flowers" Burson Fouche to Seymour's hyper hypochondriac mother who cooks with Epson salts to Seymour's boss, Gravis Mushnick, a lovingly portrayed Shylock-style Jew. In addition to the strangeness of the story and the people that populate that story, It is low-budget, but deliciously so. The sets are obvious, and the exterior shots don't even try to match the film stock, but there is something beautiful in that. Almost as if the filmmaker is winking at the viewer, and we are winking back. Willful suspension of disbelief, indeed.

From the beginning, The Little Shop of Horrors plays to the viewer, and provides little jokes to keep you interested in the rather absurd plot. The narrator is a detective, Joe Fink, that comes into the story later with a partner, Frank Stoolie, a knock-off of "Dragnet's" deadpan duo. My favorite joke of the film is that Joe lost a son just yesterday because he was playing with matches. Joe's response to those you wish him condolences, "Those are the brakes."

There are some moments that are clearly played for laughs. Such is the case with Jack Nicholson's Wilbur Force, a true masochist that visit's the dentist to find Seymour posing as the dentist, because he accidentally killed Dr. Farb in a drill duel. Wilbur wants all kinds of work done sans anesthetic, and the scene plays long and ends so cheesily that it probably should have ended up on the cutting room floor, but you get the sense that The Little Shop of Horrors is a rather thin idea that relied on some filler to make it run 70 minutes. Luckily, the filler is for the most part rather funny or at least quirky.

All in all, I would say it would be better to get the version of The Little Shop of Horrors without The Cry Baby Killer bundle job, but then you wouldn't see Jack just starting out, as the Wilbur Force role only gives us a glimpse of what Jack would become. However, if you don't care, then I'd skip Cry Baby, and simply watch the delight that is The Little Shop of Horrors. If you need to watch a late '50's rebellious teen movie check out those with James Dean or Marlon Brando. Jack wasn't meant to be a misguided love-lorn teen. He's more of the George Hanson smoking dope or the Jack Torrance trying to axe his family type, absolutely crazy but comfortable and confident in his absolute craziness.