Teenager (1974)

          More admirable for what it attempts than for what it achieves, Teenager is not even remotely the movie suggested by its poster and title. Instead, this is a lurid but fairly serious-minded story about the risks an obsessive low-budget filmmaker takes while trying to capture onscreen realism. On a thematic level, Teenager is something of a precursor to Richard Rush’s outrageous The Stunt Man (1980), even though Teenager was made with a fraction of the cash and skill brought to bear on Rush’s epic. Providing another link between the pictures, Teenager follows the production of a biker flick helmed by a guy who resembles Roger Corman—the low-budget legend who worked alongside Rush in the biker-movie trenches at American International Pictures during the ’60s. As the preceding suggests, the more one knows about the cinema-history context surrounding Teenager, the more intriguing the film becomes. Considered out of context, it is much less appealing.
          The movie opens with Charlie (Joe Warfield) trying to film a car chase while steering a van down a cliffside road, leading to a fatal crash. Then Charlie narrates from beyond the grave, flashing back in time to explain how he met his dramatic fate. The journey begins when Charlie woos a female financier who demands sex in exchange for the $50,000 Charlie needs to shoot an exploitation flick about bikers harassing the residents of a small town. The gimmick is that Charlie doesn’t tell the residents what’s happening because he wants actors to spark “real” trouble for the benefit of Charlie’s camera. Eventually the teenager of the title gets involved when local 16-year-old Carey (Andrea Cagan) latches onto the film crew and starts sleeping with one of the actors. Soon afterward, a brawl inside a general store results in a death that forces Charlie to suspend production. The remainder of Teenager explores how far he’ll go to finish his movie.

          Although director/cowriter Gerald Seth Sindell and his crew generate amateurish-looking imagery, presumably because they were under budget/schedule restraints just like the characters in their movie, the storyline’s implications are sufficiently provocative to sustain a measure of interest. And while the script is not much more polished than the physical production, Sindell’s choice to cast a Corman lookalike in the leading role seems ingenious when viewed retrospectively—Teenager provides a twisted image of what happens when nervy filmmakers disregard danger and propriety while trying to generate exciting footage. Devotees of vintage cinema will find much to savor here, from shots of filmmakers operating Arri-S cameras to a glimpse at the façade of Rollins/Joffe Productions’ LA office, and so on. Yet it’s the thematic stuff that lands with the most impact. What is realism? What entitles artists to disrupt everyday life in order to indulge the creative process? Which sacrifices are justified, and which ones cross lines? Added to this mix are nuances related to the Generation Gap, because the clash between sexually precocious Carey and her uptight father has important narrative consequences.
          To be clear, Sindell’s reach exceeds his grasp in countless ways. The script is artless, the characterizations are serviceable, and the shooting style is so rudimentary that one longs for richer coverage and slicker editing. Moreover, the acting runs a dispiriting gamut from adequate to amateurish. In other words, it’s clear why Sindell’s only subsequent feature credit is the abysmal sex comedy H.O.T.S. (1979). That said, he was onto something here, as suggested by the picture’s alternate title, The Real Thing (also the name of a recurring theme song). It’s not common for a grungy flick centering bikers and jailbait to double as a conversation piece, but for those already fascinated by the topics explored here, there’s a lot worth unpacking.

Teenager: GROOVY