This turgid melodrama is not worthy of Elia Kazan, who abandons completely his restrained, disciplined directorial style to deliver this "Rebel Without a Cause" wannabe.
Natalie Wood does what she did best in this film -- look gorgeous. But her performance, lauded in its day, is nearly embarrassing now, as she overacts her way through one emotional freak out after another as a hot and bothered teen trying to deal with raging hormones. Warren Beatty appears in an early film role, but doesn't do much more beyond giving the ladies something to look at.
The teen angst films that dominated in the mid-1950s blow this film out of the water.
Grade: C+
Natalie Wood does what she did best in this film -- look gorgeous. But her performance, lauded in its day, is nearly embarrassing now, as she overacts her way through one emotional freak out after another as a hot and bothered teen trying to deal with raging hormones. Warren Beatty appears in an early film role, but doesn't do much more beyond giving the ladies something to look at.
The teen angst films that dominated in the mid-1950s blow this film out of the water.
Grade: C+