Dalbert Pringle Fave Movie Quote - "If you flake around with weed, you'll end up using the harder stuff." The highlight of this hilariously awful "marijuana" morality play is the live performance given by pop-sensation Jerry Lee Lewis (who in 1957, at 22, had married the 13 year-old daughter of his cousin) doing his big hit "Great Balls of Fire" for all the rockin' potheads at Santa Bellow High.High School Confidential features blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren, as Gwen Dulaine, Tony's oversexed aunt in super-tight, cleavage-enhancing sweaters.Undercover narcotics officer, Tony Baker, enrolls as a student at Santa Bellow High. Posing as a loud-mouthed tough, Tony immediately begins muscling his way into the school's rife drug scene.As Tony quickly moves up the drug-dealing ladder, his wised-up teacher tries to reform him, his hot aunt tries to seduce him, and all the "weedheads" at school eagerly line up for their chance to sample one of Tony's choice marijuana-sticks.Tony soon joins up with the Wheeler Dealers, one of Santa Bellow's toughest gangs, and, before long, the heat is on.High School Confidential contains lots of unintentionally hilarious dialog. And watching the actors as they desperately attempt to look/be "cool" is what makes this film well-worth a view.

XweAponX Also appearances by Micheal Landon, Charles Chaplin, Jr. and Jackie Cooper.This film begins up with Jerry Lee Lewis and band pounding away in a High School parking lot as Tamblyn drives up in the coolest car ever seen in any of these Teenage Exploitation films.Just like 1955's "Blackboard Jungle", this film depended on exploiting the music and slang of the 50's - Which it did in not so much an over-the-top fashion as films like the '50's rock and roll films like Alan Freed's "Rock Around the Clock", "Don't Rock Around the Clock", or even the anti-marijuana film "Reefer Madness".Like "Reefer Madness", this film tries to discourage teenagers from smoking marijuana, chiefly by trying to prove that smoking marijuana leads directly to using hard drugs, which may, or may not be true- It's an angle law enforcers used to use back in the 30's that "Pot smoking always leads to using hard drugs" - An angle that we now believe as incorrect, in relation to the present day psychiatric belief that such cravings are inherited.However, the depictions of hard drug users, and use! - in this film are as close to reality as I have ever seen, especially in a film made in the 50's.Tamblyn as JD almost does not work, his performance just slides under the door into believability- However, the reason for this reveals itself as the film develops.The female lead Diane Jergens as "Joan Staples" - When Tamblyn's character calls her "Kitten" she looks rather Kittenish. Also, Mamie Van Doren as Tamblyn's aunt "Gwen Dulaine" is a standout. '50s actress Jan Sterling is Tamblyn's home-room teacher and is a good solid character role for her.One highlight of this film is by John Drew Barrymore, who as "J. I.", the ringleader of the "Wheeler-Dealers", gives us a comedic version of Columbus asking Queen Isabella for money - This delivered as a stand-up comedy routine "in front of the High School class" - And he delivers this using all 50's type slang.Overall, the slang use in this film is the best and most realistic of all the 50's rock and roll movies and Jack Arnold, "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and other Sci Fi flicks from the 50's as well as uncredited re-shoots in "This Island Earth" takes a step away from the science fiction genre to direct this classic Teenage Rock and roll/Film-Noire film.

David (Handlinghandel) "The Blackboard Jungle" had covered somewhat similar territory in a far more respectable way. Not too much about this movie could be called respectable. It does have a fine director in jack Arnold. He gave us, among others, the classic "The Incredible Shrinking Man." It's by no means a bad movie, despite its exploitative nature.Boyish Russ Tamblyn is an unlikely jive-talking bad guy. John Drew Barrymore, on the other hand, is typecast as the snarling hotshot of this high school before Tamblyn had arrived. Diane Jergens is very good as a troubled student.Mamie Van Doren is there for the sex appeal. Her character doesn't make much sense, to me anyway, but her name and picture on posters doubtless sold tickets. And Jan Sterling plays a teacher. She is, as always, very good.The movie is about drugs. I have never been drawn to drugs, though most of my friends were or still are users of pot. To me "High School Confidential" seems at times like a riff on "Reefer Madness": Yes, all drugs can have their downside. However, smoking pot does not automatically, as is suggested here, lead directly to heroin use.The movie has great Jerry Lee Lewis music. I also like Bill Haley and the Comets' famous contribution ("Rock Around the Clock") to "The Blackboard Jungle.Had I seen this when I was a teenager, a decade or so after it came out, I wouldn't have understood it. Thankfully, I knew nothing about drugs while in high school. But I'm sure that even in 1958 some schools were overrun with them.As a force for social change, the movie is questionable. But as an occasionally campybut solid entertainment, it's a gas, man.

Random666 It's funny, implausible, dated, unrealistic.... and wonderful. Great fun and full of interesting characters. You can never go wrong with Zugsmith. I watched this because of the Zugsmith connection and also to see if Russ Tamblyn could pull off a tough guy role (not any more convincing than Riff in West Side Story, but still an enjoyable performance, as was Riff). Jan Sterling is always a delight. And Mamie Van Doren... enjoyed seeing her paw Tamblyn and thrust her chest out in every scene. Jerry Lee Lewis singing in the opening scene was a bonus (and we hear the song again near the end). The final scene of Tamblyn, Van Doren, etc., riding in the car was the perfect ending to another bizarre Zugsmith production.