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Johnny Dennis (Ken Clayton) is a young & aspiring actor who is about to
make his big break with his first movie, however that doesn't make him less of
an estranged youth, but makes him fall out with his old gang, most notably with
Walter (Richard Gilden), a bit of a brute with whom he gets into a fight (but
wins).
His acting teacher Tanya (Lilyan Chauvin) tries to help him as she is madly
in love with him, but he spurns her advances.
It is at the night of his big premiere that Johnny finds Helen (Barbara
Wilson), a simple girl who has no greater aspirations but to work at a
drugstore & care for her overworked miner-dad (Frank Stallworth), & to
Johnny she's the first person who can really understand him ... & for her
he even skips his premiere, rather spending a romantic night with her.
On the next day though, Johnny meets with Walter, & this time dishes him
out a real beating, leaving him on the floor unconscious. Then he gives Tanya a
letter for Helen - &, with a haunting sef-portrait that portrayys his
troubled life - hotrods out of town.
Tanya delivers the letter to Helen, heartbroken as she figures it must be a
suicide letter to Johnny's true love ... & she guesses right.
Johnny however, standing at the lake where he wants to drown himself &
thus metaphorically on the verge of life & death, decides to choose life
though, throwing into the lake his picture & all it stands for, &
drives off into the night ...
Rather boring film-business/teenage melodram very loosely based on the life
& death of James Dean (or more correctly the legend that surrounds him)
& done pretty much on a shoestring (which though in the foreword is sold
off as cinema verité). The main problem with the movie though is that it is
filled with way too much dialogue that says way too little, & no actual
storyline that would even fill the meager 75-minutes running time.
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