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Although slow in places, this one is still a keeper. Love the day-glo colors, hot rods, small-town atmosphere and hip teen lingo. Check out the cool, angular chrome-on-white freezer section in the grocery store... even food market refrigeration units had tail fins! The film makers did a heck of a lot with a small budget. Very entertaining to this very day.

Despite being obviously too old for the role, I think McQueen did an admirable job of portraying a level-headed teenager, and it was refreshing to see the police chief ("Let's wait until the morning...") take the side of the kids.

The comedy relief sometimes falls flat in the picture. The cleaning lady sequence goes on too long, but the chess-playing deputy hit it just right.

What is interesting about this film is the integration, and the common-place acceptance of the pressures and technology of late 1950's life. It's a wonderful historical document. In this movie we see kids out, late-night, driving cars (no doubt inspired somewhat by automobiles they saw advertised at home on their television sets). And no, these weren't ancient model T's, but, for their time, modern cars that would be acceptable to be seen on the road today. Telephones, electricity, television sets, modern autos, mass communications... all were there and accepted as a normal part of everyday life. Go back even twenty five years prior to this film's release date and you'd wouldn't see most of this stuff in the average home. Many places didn't have electricity in the early 1930's. Not everyone had a car or telephone and of course, there was no TV. Ten years prior to this dmovie hitting the theatres, precious few people even had televisions and there wasn't much programming if you did, and then usually just on the east coast. I don't recall anything at all having to do with TV in the movie, but it's a given that its there because in 1958, it just was.

Of course, this movie didn't go to great lengths to prove anything. It simply documents life as it was being lived.