THE REBEL SET - "Jungle Of Strange Kicks" (1959)

 

Tonight's Saturday Night Special is a hipster/robber flick from 1959 called "The Rebel Set," but let's get something straight first thing, You don't spell Beatnik Beatnick, because that's just not cool!

They tried to sell this film as being about rebellious beatniks, and their wanton ways, but that's not what it is at all!

The setting at the beginning of the film is a 'beat' club, and there's lots of cool and groovy music from Maestro Paul Dunlap no doubt!

The owner of the club is a shyster named Mr. Tucker as played by Edward Platt. His flunky is a two-bit crook named Sidney. Mr. Tucker has a plan to rob an armored car, and he sends Sidney out to get three known losers to help him with his plan. Edward Platt might be best known as The Chief on "Get  Smart" for 137 episodes, but he's done so much more than that including being in the episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "A Hundred Yards Over The Rim," and I believe he's the only person I know of who has been in three episodes of "The Outer Limits!"

 Ned Glass as Sidney had a totally amazing career that included lots of Three Stooges shorts, two episodes of "The Twilight Zone," "A Passage For Trumpet," and "The Midnight Sun," two Elvis movies, and parts in everything from "War Of The Worlds," to "West Side Story."

The first of the three chumps is an out of work actor named Johnny Mapes.

Since a lot of you people out there don't even know how to drink a beer properly, here's a three point set of instructions on how to do it. First, get yourself a Churchkey, and punch a hole on one side of the top.

Second thing is you rotate the can 90 degrees, and punch a hole in the other side so that it acts as a vent!

The third step is to pour it down your gullet! You don't sip beer, it's made to be gulped!

Really talented beer drinkers can even drink with one hand in their pocket without falling down and breaking their face. This is really something to strive for!

Johnny's taking acting lessons from an "Act With The Stars" record.

The record is cleverly moved to reveal the next one of the three stooges to get involved in this heist!

"The Rebel Set" was made the same year as "Bucket Of Blood," and the hipster beat elements and antics are very similar in both of them. The cool jazz, free poetry, and distant people spacing out, would make the two films into a very hip double feature!

Here's the three victims chosen by Mr. Tucker to pull off his heist, from left to right. Ray (Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter) Lupton as failed author Ray Miller, Gregg (The Creature Walks Among Us, From Hell It Came) Palmer as failed actor Johnny Mapes, and Don (The Giant Gila Monster, Teenage Zombies) Sullivan, as bad boy loser son of a famous actress, George Leland.

Before we leave the beatniks and hipsters and this film turns into a fairly standard cops and robbers affair, we have to talk about the main act in the beat cafe, I. Stanford Jolley as a wildman beat poet called King Invader.

I. Stanford Jolley had an incredible 379 acting credits to his name that included sixteen tons of western movies, but he was also in serials that included "Batman," "The Phantom," "Superman," and "The Crimson Ghost," etc. This role as King Invader was quite different for him, and it looks like he relished it!

What a shot of a train!!

Well, of course the whole plan goes haywire in multiple directions. The guy with the least amount of money problems, George Leland, gets greedy, and gets a bullet for his excesses made to look like a suicide.

Mr. Tucker escapes dressed as a priest, and there is a long and tedious chase scene.

In one of the rare moments of intended comedy, just like in a cartoon, these three bums pop out of their hidden sleeping quarters to watch the scene go by, and just as quickly, duck back in!

Johnny Mapes cannot believe what he has just witnessed!

In a weird twist of fate, George Leland's dead body passes unknowingly right in front of his famous Mother, just as she's telling reporters that she's back in town to be with her son, and reunite their family!

 

"The Rebel Set" is in the public domain and can be viewed and shared freely via the Internet Archive.

It's only a little over an hour and eleven minutes, so what have you got to lose!?

I specifically didn't tell you the story so you can enjoy all the quirkiness of this 'jungle of strange kicks' firsthand!