UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

hrkepler 'Jail Bait' is somewhat lesser known Ed Wood 's movie. Probably because it is slightly better than his most famous works. The dialogue is ridiculously written and actors chewing themselves through the silly lines thus destroying acting with every scene. Weird jump cuts in an inappropriate moments that doesn't add anything to scene but just demolishing the flow of it. 'Jail Bait' has much more coherent story line and consistent script than we are used from Ed Wood movie. That can be associated to co-writer Alex Gordon (who also produced couple of Roger Corman's movies). Thanks to tight writing 'Jail Bait' is more serious in tone and offers less unintentional comedy and as that it just stays a badly made film-noir, but stands as 'best' film directed by infamous Ed Wood.The film's score with its pseudo flamenco guitar and obnoxious piano pounding takes off lot of tension from several scenes and adds some weird atmosphere to the movie. The mood of otherworldly is enhanced by that, that all the action takes place at night time and we see California without sunshine - dark and murky place instead of bright scenery we are used to.'Jail Bait' has its charm and it is entertaining to watch wooden actors sleepwalking through bad dialogue and unbelievable procedures (plastic surgery done on the living room sofa without almost no medical equipment). The viewer also gets awarded with nice ending twist. Not quite Ed Wood at his best, but more at his 'best'.

DigitalRevenantX7 Don Gregor is arrested by the police for carrying an unlicensed pistol. He is bailed out by his sister Marilyn & is warned by the cops to stay away from guns. What they don't know is that he has managed to get away with a robbery & already has another gun hidden in a book at the family home. Despite Marilyn's protestations, Don takes the revolver & joins his old mate, petty gangster Vic Brady, in robbing a theatre. The plan was to take the money & bail out fast, but the security guard (a retired cop) resists & a female witness stumbles onto the heist. Don is forced to kill the guard & Vic shoots the witness. But the witness survives & IDs Don & Vic as the robbers. Don, struggling with his conscience over the guard's death, visits his father (a famous plastic surgeon) & confesses to the killing. He then visits Vic, who kills him in order to escape the law. Realising that Don's father is a plastic surgeon, Vic abducts the doctor & forces him to change Vic's appearance so that he can beat the witness ID. But the doctor, discovering that his son is dead, decides to give the ruthless gangster an ironic punishment.Edward D. Wood Jr – most commonly known as Ed Wood – is considered to be the world's worst director of all time & creator of the much-respected schlock classic PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, a formidably bad alien invasion flick that became legendary for its sheer ineptitude. Jail Bait was one of Wood's early films & comes with script input from Alex Gordon, who would later become a producer at AIP.For the first hour or so, Jail Bait emerges as a pretty average crime flick, no more or less. It has a plot that is standard for the genre, although Gordon would ensure that most of the dialogue would not match the usual low standards of Wood's poor writing skills (although some of the dialogue would still sound a little cheesy). Future Hercules actor Steve Reeves appears as a cop (his voice is deep, not squeaky, in order to quash those old rumours) & future Plan 9 stars Lyle Talbot & Mona McKinnon make appearances here as well. The plot, with Clancy Malone's obsession with carrying guns in order to carry out small armed robberies, seems pretty average. Also of note is the fact that the film's low production values give rise to some pretty annoying blunders – the minstrel clip that appears halfway through the film is there just to pad out the running time & is rather pointless, while Hoyt Kurtain's droning guitar & piano score is incredibly annoying & proves to be somewhat of an irritation.But while the first hour seems fairly average, Jail Bait reaches a suitably ironic climax that I personally managed to predict about ten minutes in advance & found myself laughing my head off at the twist ending that has the doctor change Timothy Farrell's gangster's face to resemble his late son so that Farrell would inherit his cop killing rap (which was ultimately his fault anyway) & get the punishment he so rightly deserves. This ending, along with the throwaway shot of Dolores Fuller's sister being revealed to also carrying a gun in her purse (an instance of poetic irony) make what is essentially a mediocre crime thriller turn into a passably eccentric thriller.

tnrcooper This is, like all Ed Wood movies, wonderfully enjoyable. Quality? If you're watching Ed Wood for quality, well, you must not have heard. Having said that, I thought the plotting in this film is better than his other movies. I have to admit I saw the end coming but even still, I thought it was pretty good plotting except for the fact that the surgeon would have tipped off the cops that his son was being held, rather than waiting two weeks. The acting is hilariously wonderful. The line readings are excellent if one couldn't read and one was 15. The doctor who reports to the cops about the condition of the bookkeeper sounds as interested as if he was talking about lint on his jacket. The disengagement of Loretta and Marilyn when they are talking about Marilyn's difficult relationship with Vic (Tim Farrell) is hysterical. The lack of passion when the cops and the crooks meet in the bar is hilarious. Vic's threatening comments made to Marilyn delivered as if he was trying to decide what to get at the grocery store are hilarious. Obviously all this misses the point. This is an Ed Wood movie and clearly the man wanted to make movies. Quality and wisdom were no barriers. That said, there are some good things, about the movie. The plot, I thought, was quite imaginative. I've read that some people didn't like the music but I thought it contributed to the suspenseful aura. The acting from Herbert Rawlinson was good and Dolores Fuller was OK. Again though, I didn't expect to see a master class on film. Ed Wood had an undeniable passion for making movies and I can - and do - appreciate that. Many directors and actors are only in it for the paycheck and that clearly wasn't the case for Wood. Seeing people do something that they surely weren't paid much for work again and again with Wood makes him a very intriguing, and quite honestly, admirable character and one can tolerate his technical shortcomings in light of his passion.

Michael O'Keefe Ed Wood Jr. tries Film-Noir with this little crime drama. Lyle Talbot plays Inspector Johns and Steve Reeves as Lt. Bob Lawrence close in on a young man(Clancy Malone), the son of a prominent plastic surgeon(Herbert Rawlinson), who after hanging with a small time criminal(Timothy Farrell)is wanted for murder. His sister(Dolores Fuller)has been his best support for so long and now there is nothing she can do. His father wants to protect him and does have the last say-so in the finale. Wood's lack of talent shows all over JAIL BAIT. By the way, the title is not about a young girl...but a gun. Talbot does the best with what is offered him. And yes, Reeves is the future Hercules. Fuller would would later have small parts in movies, but her biggest claim to any fame is for writing a handful of songs for Elvis Presley.