The Delinquents (1957 film)

The Delinquents is a 1957 American drama film written, produced, and directed by Robert Altman in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri during the summer of 1956 on a 63,000 budget.

Soon after, the police mysteriously appear and break up the drunken freeforall. Cholly and his righthanddelinquent Eddy suspect Scotty of tipping off the police, and the whole gang kidnaps Scotty the next day and force him to gulp down an entire bottle of Scotch when he wont admit to being the informant. In panic after Scotty passes out from drinking, the gang begins to drive him out to the country with the intention of abandoning him on the side of the road but on the way they pull into a service station to get some gas. Eddy decides to hold up the station, but Scotty unknowingly bungles it when he wakes up. Cholly hits the station attendant on the head with a gas pump, and the gang speeds off, leaving Scotty behind with the cash and the attendant. Scotty staggers home, finds the gang has kidnapped Janice, has several fights, and then has a switchblade fight with Cholly in a home kitchen. Scotty then goes to the police.Elmer Rhoden Jr. was a Kansas City motion picture theater exhibitor, president of the prominent Commonwealth Theaters chain in Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Rhoden wanted to get into producing films. He had the distributing apparatus at hand and the necessary capital to invest. Although television was drawing viewers out of the theaters, teenagers still frequented theaters, and, soon, film producers realized that there was a large teen market they could tap into. During the midtolate 1950s, following the success of movies by American International Pictures aimed at the teenage market such as Shake, Rattle amp Rock and Hot Rod Girl, a huge wave of films, often referred to as exploitation films, were later produced by the major Hollywood studios and independents alike. Common subjects of 1950s teen films included juvenile delinquency, rock and roll, horror, science fiction, and hot rods. Rhoden Jr. was one of the first independent exhibitors to note these shifts in the film industry and was determined to make it work fo

Source: Wikipedia