Sure, there's a real generation gap these days. It's reflected in the debate over which decade is worthiest of feeling nostalgic for. People of the '90s flee from the saggy current Zeitgeist toward some more wired, more meaningful time. The '60s and '70s have attracted big cults, but to true devotees of deja voodoo, the golden age was the '50s. Survivors of that era rise from their golf carts and shout, "We don't need no stinkin' Woodstock! And Watergate nostalgia is for wonks! Listen, pal, I was a teenage teenager. I want the '50s -- Ike, Mad, duck and cover, the birth of rock 'n' roll. And films about teens in turmoil -- the cheaper and grungier the better."
In a flashy tribute to those movies and mores, Showtime is rolling out 10 teen features set in the '50s but with '90s attitude splattered all over, like the rotten eggs that used to decorate Dad's DeSoto on mischief night. The series, called Rebel Highway, is premiering a movie a week each Friday through Sept. 16. Taken together, this seamy decalogue shows the '50s as a neat place to visit -- a lovers' lane accessible from a killer drag strip -- but hell to live through. Each movie revives the battles between tough guys and sweet chicks; each recalls hot sex before the pill and those enduring teen compulsions: to rebel and to belong.
The idea was for 10 film directors of eccentric renown to take the title but not the plot of a '50s exploitation epic from the vault of American International Pictures and, on a miserly budget of $1.3 million, spin a hip variation on it. So Allan Arkush (Rock 'n' Roll High School) picked Shake, Rattle and Rock; Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat) selected Cool and the Crazy; Joe Dante (Gremlins) chose Runaway Daughters; Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn) took Confessions of a Sorority Girl; William Friedkin (The Exorcist) got Jailbreakers; Jonathan Kaplan (The Accused) chose Reform School Girl; Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary) took Dragstrip Girl; John McNaughton (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) opted for Girls in Prison; John Milius (Conan the Barbarian) chose Motorcycle Gang. The only youngster, 25-year-old Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi), got Roadracers.
None of the directors needed to feel awed by their source material. These weren't the signal teen films of the '50s (Rebel Without a Cause, The Wild One, Invasion of the Body Snatchers); they are forgotten schlock from the bottom of producer Sam Arkoff's Z-movie barrel. Maybe they were drive-in classics, but that's because kids didn't go to drive-ins for the movies. The A.I.P. films were moldy melodramas whose only nod to '50s spirit was in their titles. If they were to show up on TV now, it would only be as fodder for the brilliant deconstructionist raillery of Mystery Science Theater 3000.