Abstract
Teenager Dori Graham is desperate to earn enough money to buy a dress for the local dance. That pretty much sums up the dramatic premise of the 1956 feature film Rock, Rock, Rock! But the film isn’t really about plot, it’s about music. It’s one of a series of similar productions featuring the pioneering disc jockey Alan Freed as himself. Other films in the series include Rock Around the Clock (1956), Mister Rock and Roll (1957) Don’t Knock the Rock (1957) and the ‘rock’-free title Go Johnny Go! (1959). In these films Freed played host to an illustrious cast of music groups and artists, including Bill Haley & His Comets, The Platters, Chuck Berry, LaVern Baker, Little Richard, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Eddie Cochran, The Flamingos and Jackie Wilson. Long before the advent of the music video, the raison d’être of such films was to give their teenage audiences the opportunity to see their favourite artists in action.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
J. Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: America’s Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 63.
Despite the fact that by 1945 J. Edgar Hoover was claiming that ‘17-year-old boys and 18-year old girls have committed more crimes than any other age groups’, statistics on juvenile crime throughout the war period and well into the 1950s are indeed dubious. The means of collecting accurate statistical data on actual crime was less than reliable, especially in light of the fact that crime statistics can be affected by changes in what is considered a crime, as well as changes in police practice and reporting. In the absence of accurate data, sporadic and sensational accounts of juvenile crime and, in particular, J. Edgar Hoover’s own seriously biased and emotionally-charged reports on the social changes brought about by the war affected public perceptions of the juvenile delinquency problem. See J. Edgar Hoover’s ‘There will be a Post-War Crime Wave Unless -’, The Rotation, Vol. 66, No. 4 (April 1945): 12–14; ‘Why Law Fails to Stop Teenage Crime’, U.S. News & World Report (14 January 1955): 64–75.
Max F. Baer, ‘The National Juvenile Delinquency Picture’, Personnel & Guidance Journal, 38 (December 1959): 278–9.
‘Gas Ends Rock ‘n Roll Riot’, New York Times (4 November 1956); ‘Rock ‘n Roll Fight Hospitalizes Youth’, New York Times (15 April 1957); ‘Rock ‘n Roll Stabbing’, New York Times (5 May 1958); Ben Gross, New York Daily News (8 June 1956).
Francis J. Braceland, quoted in ‘Rock-and-Roll Called “Communicable Disease”’, New York Times (28 March 1956). Referring to Rock ‘n’ Roll as ‘cannibalistic and tribalistic’, Braceland is undoubtedly tapping into fears about Rock ‘n’ Roll’s influence, as an ostensibly black American music form, on white American youth.
In 1954, while the film Rebel Without a Cause was in pre-production, Nicholas Ray was interested in meeting Linder in order to compare his views on delinquency with his own. At this stage Linder knew that Ray and the studio had rejected the content of his book and retained the title alone. He completely disagreed with Ray’s idea for a naturalistic treatment of the subject, insisting that his psychoanalytical approach was the only way to go about presenting the delinquency problem on screen. Fortunately, Ray utterly rejected this approach. See Douglas L. Rathgeb, The Making of Rebel Without a Cause (Jefferson: McFarland, 2004), pp. 32–7.
Robert M. Lindner, quoted in Ronald J. Oakley, God’s Country: America in the Fifties (New York: Dembner Books, 1986), p. 270. See also, Cyndy Hendershot, I was a Cold War Monster: Horror Films, Eroticism, and the Cold War Imagination (Bowling Green, Ohio: Popular Press, 2001), p. 114.
Cyndy Hendershot, I was a Cold War Monster: Horror Films, Eroticism, and the Cold War Imagination (Bowling Green, Ohio: Popular Press, 2001), p. 114.
John Springhall, Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics: Penny Gaffs to Gangsta-Rap, 1830–1996 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 1999), p. 7.
Leerom Medovoi, Rebels: Youth and the Cold War Origins of Identity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), p. 42.
See Rachel Devlin, ‘Female Juvenile Delinquency and the Problem of Sexual Authority in America, 1945–1965’, Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities (Winter, 1997).
Karen Anderson, Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations, and the Status of Women During World War II (London: Greenwood Press, 1981), p. 104.
Joshua S. Goldstein, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 339.
Quoted in John Costello, Love Sex and War: Changing Values, 1939–45 (London: William Collins, 1985), p. 282.
See Marilyn E. Hegarty, Victory Girls, Khaki-Wackies, and Patriotiites: The Regulation of Female Sexuality during World War II (New York; London: New York University Press, 2008).
Narratives highlighting the dangerous threat women posed to military men continued well after the war. One true crime publication from 1952 announced ‘The Nation’s Number 1 Shame — The Dames Who Prey on G.I. Joe!’, ‘Millions of dollars are spent to teach G.I. Joe how to handle himself in combat, but he receives no training in how to defend himself against another kind of enemy.’ Police Detective, June 1952.
Evelyn Millis Duvall, Facts of Life and Love for Teenagers (New York: Association Press, 1950), p. 67.
Ernest L. Matthews, Jr, Out of Bounds (New York: Universal Books, 1954), cover blurb.
Tereska Torres, Women’s Barracks (New York: Gold Medal Books 1950), cover blurb.
Fredric Wertham, Introduction to Hal Ellson’s Tomboy (Michigan: Scribner, 1950), p. v.
J.C. Priest, Private School (New York: Universal Publishing & Distributing Corporation, 1959), cover blurb.
Albert L. Quandt, Zip-Gun Angels (New York: Original Novels, 1952).
Wenzell Brown, Gang Girl (New York: Avon Books, 1954).
Joe Weiss, Girl Gang (New York: Beacon Books, 1957).
Don Elliott, Gang Girl (New York: Nightstand Book, 1959).
Harry Whittington, Halfway to Hell (New York: Avon Books, 1959).
Joseph Hilton, Angels In The Gutter (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Gold Medal Books, 1955), cover blurb.
Leo Margulies, Bad Girls (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Crest, 1958).
Kate Nickerson, Boy Chaser (Carnival Books, 1955).
Ernie Weatherall, Rock ‘n Roll Gal (New York: Beacon Books, 1957), cover blurbs.
Kerry Segrave, Drive-In Theaters: A History from their Inception in 1933 (Jefferson: McFarland, 2006) p. 10.
See Beth Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988).
Wertham, interviewed by Judith Crist, ‘Horror in the Nursery’, Collier’s 27 March 1948: 22–3, 95–7.
See also Mike Benton, The Comic Book in America (Dallas, Tex.: Taylor Publishing, 1989), p. 45.
Fredric Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent (New York, Toronto: Rinehart & Company, Inc. 1953, 1954), p. 178. See also Maurice Horn, Sex in the Comics (New York: Chelsea House, 1985), p. 134.
Maurice Horn, Sex in the Comics (New York: Chelsea House, 1985), p. 134.
‘Wald Slams Exploitation Films, Told “Peyton Place” Pretty Lurid,’ Variety, 29 October 1958: 7. Quoted in Thomas Doherty, Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002), p. 129.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2011 Elizabeth McCarthy
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McCarthy, E. (2011). Fast Cars and Bullet Bras: The Image of the Female Juvenile Delinquent in 1950s America. In: Jones, D., McCarthy, E., Murphy, B.M. (eds) It Came From the 1950s!. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230337237_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230337237_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-32307-4
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-33723-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Media & Culture CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)