MARRIED TOO YOUNG (1962)

High school student Tommy, who works at Miltie's Garage, wins an auto race and is congratulated by his boss Miltie and his girlfriend Helen. A slick but slimy guy named Grimes tells him he deserves a better job but Tommy, rightfully suspicious, ignores him, even though Grimes says he'll be back one day with a solid offer. Tommy hopes to go to college when he graduates even though his working-class parents don't do much to encourage him. That night, Tommy takes Helen, from an upper-class background, out to a classy night spot, but when she insists on taking the floor for a solo sexy dance and is accosted by a drunk, the two leave. Helen keeps nuzzling Tommy, distracting him from his driving, so they go parking at a lover's lane. Leaping into the back seat, they make out forcefully (the most realistic scene in the movie) but Tommy stops himself from going any further. They impulsively decide to cross the state line and elope. Both are still living with their parents so they try to keep the marriage a secret. At the garage, Grimes and his hotsy gal pal Marla stop by; Grimes asks Tommy to take the car (with Marla in it) for a spin to check out the carburetor. While he's gone, Grimes flirts (unsuccessfully) with Helen, while Marla (somewhat more successfully) smooches on Tommy, leading to the couple's first fight. Helen's mom, over the moon about being accepted by the local country club, finds her daughter's marriage license, calls Tommy a nobody, and gets together with Tommy's equally disapproving folks to complain to the justice of the peace who married them. He tells them it is a perfectly legal marriage and criticizes the parents for fighting against the couple's happiness. At the parents' insistence, the two have a public wedding at City Hall, then move in with his parents, then her parents, but when they feel hemmed in by parental rules, Miltie gives Tommy a raise and encourages them to buy a house, which they do. But things don't get much better, and soon Tommy reluctantly agrees to do extra work for Grimes to do retouch jobs on stolen cars. This leads to fights, a cop chase, and a car accident. But improbably, with the help of a sympathetic judge, there's a happy ending for Tommy and Helen.

This teen melodrama was clearly made on the cheap and would be forgotten today but for two things: 1) Ed Wood, though not credited, is rumored to have rewritten the end of the screenplay (though the daughter of the credited screenwriter insists that isn't true); 2) the leading role of Tommy is played by Harold Lloyd Jr., son of the famous silent movie comic actor. Lloyd Jr. had a spotty acting career and did some work for his father on a couple of compilation films. He was gay and is rumored to have had a thing for rough sex which occasionally left him bruised up, though to be fair, I can find no authoritative source for this even though it's mentioned several places on the Internet. He eventually took to drink, had a stroke at 34 and died at 40. He was 30 when he played a 17-year-old here; he passes for younger than 30 but he's certainly no teenager. He's actually quite good, putting a lot of energy into his performance, perhaps realizing that something had to distract from the cheap production and weak screenplay. Jana Lund (pictured with Lloyd) is fine as Helen, also acting with conviction—she was good a few years earlier in HIGH SCHOOL HELLCATS. Their car make-out scene, as I noted, looks awfully real, and their married relationship also feels real—they're two kids who don't really understand what a marriage is all about, and are navigating blindly with no help from adults, except for well-meaning Miltie. 

Anthony Dexter started at the top playing Valentino in a much-ballyhooed 1951 film and it was downhill from there. His role here as Grimes is important to the plot but minor, and he walks through it like an android set to "bland villainy," and his villainy seems unmotivated. Marianna Hill, who wound up with eighty acting credits, is Marla, who is likable when she's necking with Tommy's pal Mike (Cedric Jordan) and less likable when she’s with Grimes (she winds up back with Mike by the end). The mothers of Tommy and Helen seem youngish and energetic, but both of the fathers come off as drab and lifeless, not even able to work up any depictions of toxic masculinity. I enjoyed this largely due to Lloyd's committed performance. I watched this first mocked on Rifftrax, then I tracked down the original version on YouTube in a pristine widescreen print, which always helps. It's apparently available on Blu-ray, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to purchase it. But I do recommend it to fans of the 60s teen exploitation genre. [YouTube]