Sleepy Brooklyn Noir

TEENAGE GANG DEBS (1966)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Halfway through the incredibly short running time of 73 minutes, "Teenage Gangs Debs" has one or two endless montages that feature gang members harassing a young woman by literally riding their bikes in circle formation around her. Then we get two eternal dance numbers where young men and women do the jig to some instrumental pop number. I would think that it means we are left with less than an hour devoted to any sort of story.

Somewhere in Brooklyn, a new girl in town from Manhattan named Terry (Diane Conti) is looking to become part of the "Rebels" gang. She enters an exclusive bar where the members hang out and asks for a soda. Why she wants to be a member, I can't say. Johnny (John Batis) is the leader of the pack. If you become Johnny's girl (a "deb"), then he must have his initials carved into your chest. Terry isn't having it and conspires with Nino, Johnny's second man (Joey Naudic), to betray and kill Johnny. It almost seems as if Terry wants control of the gang but then the movie sputters and tanks with excessive padding to make it past the one hour mark.

"Teenage Gang Debs" commits the unfortunate sin of occasional boredom. An exploitation tale like this should have verve and some energy but it operates on sluggishness, with one too many dance numbers and some street violence that seems to have emerged from an unrelated documentary. Terry's demands and her manipulative methods are the best thing about this film - she is aching to get the gang a higher status by getting into rumbles. The nagging question is why does she care and what does she expect to get out of it? It is also nice to see Eileen Dietz (known in the credits as Eileen Scott) in her first major role as a teen girl who wants out - this is long before she got to be known as Pazuzu's Ghost face.

Some have termed this picture "sleaze noir." It is sleepy noir.

Viva the dim Elvis money pit

VIVA LAS VEGAS (1964)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

An Elvis Presley movie has to be approached as entertainment, nothing more. His best films, "King Creole" and "Jailhouse Rock," offered more than simple-minded entertainment - they had meaty stories and well-drawn characters. "Viva Las Vegas" is one of Elvis's most popular movies but, when all is said and done, its mere novelty is that it is nothing more than a picturesque travelogue with Elvis and Ann-Margret chewing up the screen with their songs and dance moves.

Elvis stars as Lucky Jackson, a cocky race car driver with aspirations to race at the Grand Prix in Las Vegas. The trouble is that there is a powerful engine he needs to buy for his precious car. Lucky tries his luck at a Vegas casino and actually wins the money. Unfortunately, the engine is bought by someone else and, through a series of misadventures, namely falling in a pool while making courtly advances to a fellow employee, Rusty Martin (Ann-Margret), Lucky loses his money and finds himself working as a waiter at a hotel.

In the meantime, there are a series of montages involving Lucky and a rival driver, Count Elmo Mancini (played by Cesare Danova), who spend about twenty minutes searching for that pretty redhead Rusty at every single Vegas casino and showplace on the Strip (which only leaves about another one hour of more repetitive montages). There are also the requisite songs sung by Elvis and Ann-Margret - my favorites are the title tune, "The Lady Loves Me," and "Appreciation.

To criticize "Viva Las Vegas" is to ask for trouble. How can you argue against a movie that hardly has a story or credible characters, and is just concerned with being silly and fluffy nonsense? The movie is mostly an advertisement for Las Vegas, offering scenic beauty and plenty of helicopter shots of the horizon in Cinemascope color. And there is Elvis and Ann-Margret, two dazzling, sexy, charismatic stars who unfortunately have little in the way of chemistry. And the final race car competition results in two deaths (though one of them survives relatively unscathed if you check out the final wedding sequence), and apparently starts at midnight though it seems to last through the next day!

There are some electric moments with the dynamic Ann-Margret, a fabulous singer and dancer and an overall better actor than Elvis. Elvis himself has one high comedic point where he splashes champagne all over Cesare, who is trying to woo Ann-Margret. Beyond that, I expect much more than pretty scenery and a few good songs, but why carp? People seem to love this movie, so be it.