The Cry Baby Killer

The Cry Baby Killer
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Joe Addis
Written by Leo Gordon
Melvin Levy
Produced by Roger Corman
David Kramarsky
David March
Starring Harry Lauter
Jack Nicholson
Carolyn Mitchell
Cinematography Floyd Crosby
Edited by Irene Morra
Music by Gerald Fried
Distributed by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation
Release date
  • August 17, 1958
Running time
 70 minutes
Country United States
Language English

The Cry Baby Killer is a 1958 teen exploitation film produced by Roger Corman that marked Jack Nicholson's film debut. The film was out of print and difficult to find until 2006, when it was issued on DVD for the first time by Buena Vista Home Entertainment as part of its Roger Corman Classics series.

Plot

17-year-old Jimmy Wallace panics after he thinks he has committed manslaughter while fighting with a group of teenage hoodlums. Wallace then takes a random man and woman, and the woman's infant, hostage inside of a food shelter outside of a popular local restaurant, and threatens them if they try to escape. This leads to a stand-off with a police force led by the sympathetic detective, Lieutenant Porter, who tries to avoid bloodshed. Meanwhile, an eager crowd of onlookers and a news reporter gather outside to see what'll happen next.

Production

Corman later claimed that The Cry Baby Killer was the first film that he produced that didn't return a profit, although he said that it earned back its budget from TV rights. Corman also said that he'd been abroad during preproduction while much of the script was changed by the producer. Corman returned to Hollywood 2 days before filming began and tried to reverse the changes, but was only partially successful.

Cast

See also