Cry Baby Details

Jack Nicholson's first big break — and his last for some time — was gaining the title role in this low-budget contribution to the juvenile delinquency cycle of the time. Nicholson mades his film debut as the frightened teenager who shoots two bullies and barricades himself in a storeroom with hostages. The siege that follows — with police, parents and friends trying to make the essentially decent youngster surrender — is well handled by director Jus Addiss, but Nicholson's part is too underwritten for him to make much of it. The script was mainly by actor Leo Gordon, seen as a vicious onlooker, while executive producer Roger Corman also has a small role.

An energetic and hyperactively hormonal romp through '50s kitsch from trash-master Waters. In Baltimore, 1954, the... read more on Time Out