One of the most common attributes shared by the pioneers of the Hollywood New Wave was that most of their first movies were terrible. Martin Scorsese's first two films, Who's That Knocking on My Door? (1967) and Boxcar Bertha (1972), were unfortunate bumps in his career. The less said about Francis Ford Coppola's Dementia 13 (1963), the better. So imagine my surprise when Robert Altman's first film, The Delinquents, was actually decent. Well, not so much decent as watchable. It's actually quite a funny film when viewed within the context of Altman's career. Altman would go on to become one of the most iconoclastic and anti-authoritarian directors to ever grace Hollywood. And yet The Delinquents is a film that portrays the evils of drinking and hanging out with a bad crowd. It even has a sombre epilogue read by a deep-voiced man who espouses the virtues of civic duty and religious morals. But the film itself is about a young couple, Scotty White and Janice Wilson, who are kept apart by Janice's overbearing parents. Along the way, they end up going to a party with a bunch of tough guys. They leave when one of them makes inappropriate advances to Janice. However, right after they leave the party is busted by the cops. Convinced that Scotty ratted them out, the gang goes looking for Scotty's blood. I have to admit that The Delinquents was much better than I thought it was going to be. You can even get a sense of the birth of Altman's love of crowd scenes with multiple lines of dialogue going on at the same time. There's even a scene where the gang forces Scotty to drink an entire bottle of Scotch in one sitting that is surprisingly well executed. But the film is still far from being good. However, it speaks to Altman's abilities that it wasn't much, much worse.
5/10
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