In contrast to earlier in the week, Jail Bait is not the creation of a master. It’s the brainchild of legendary awful director Ed D Wood Jr so it certainly ticks the pulp box. Unfortunately the film is so bad that it’s just bad.
This mercifully short (71 minutes) feature film is about Don Gregor (Clancy Malone), a good boy who’s fallen in with hardened criminal Vic Brady (Timothy Farrell). When a robbery goes wrong and Vic finds himself a wanted man, he asks Don’s father (Herbert Rawlinson), an eminent plastic surgeon, to give him a new face.
The worst part of the film is the score. It’s neither the haunting score of Laura nor the cold score of Double Indemnity. Instead it’s grating Spanish guitars and plonky piano playing with the same ‘tune’ played on a constant loop that will make you want to scream.
Whilst film noirs do have a strong sense of morality, Jail Bait is moralistic. Don done wrong and his father tells him many times. The dialogue is clunky and the acting…well, it’s wooden but when it comes to a humorous or dramatic line, the actors strain so noticeably that the return to woodenness is a blessing.
There’s no doubt that the directing is abysmal. The actors move like robots- a surreal experience to watch but without the campness that would make it entertaining.
The only point of curiosity in the storyline (aside from the shocking minstrel show scene that Wood lifted from another film) is the face transplant, which is the only real element that pushes the film into the film noir genre rather than crime movie.
If you really want to see a film with plastic surgery, Les Yeux Sans Visage has the creepy surrealness that Jail Bait should have had, so it’s not even worth seeing for curiosity value.