The Teen Movie Boom

With Rebel Without A Cause and Blackboard Jungle, both produced in 1955, the Teen Movie explodes onto the screen. High school, campus, clubbing, teenage love and all the tribal rights between youngsters become subject matter and guarantee box office value.

Hollywood, sensitive as ever to new trends in music, teen pics’ emerge as an antidote and find their most notorious expression in the so-called ‘Beach Movies’. America’s youth experiences Flower Power and the Hippie culture and worships its own heroes, for example in Easy Rider. Dennis Hopper succinctly remarks ‘while people continue to watch Doris Day and Rock Hudson, the youngsters smoke pot or take LSD at love-ins all over the country’. American Graffiti puts George Lucas on the map while Francis Ford Coppola tried his hand at the genre with The Outsiders. Saturday Night Fever and Grease elaborate on similar subjects while Big Wednesday admits that even teenagers grow up. All plots are specifically based on teenage interests such as coming of age, first love, rebellion, generation conflict, teen angst or alienation. New technologies will be added in due course and become subject matter in War Games in which a hacker brings the world to the brink.

Directors : Clara Kuperberg & Julia Kuperberg
Production : Wichita Films
Producers : Clara Kuperberg & Julia Kuperberg
Network : OCS
Year : 2012
Running Time : 52 minutes

Casting

Lee Purcell
Actress Big Wednesday by John Milius

Craig Detweiler
Film professor Pepperdine University, Californie.

Susannah Gora
Author and Film Journalist