Above are two posters for Running Wild, a drama fitting loosely into the juvenile delinquency sub-genre, and these promos certainly impart that, with their somewhat chaotic background elements. The movie stars William Campbell as a bad attitude in hipster clothes who turns out to be an undercover cop sent to implode a smalltown car theft ring. Though we didn’t suspect the troublemaker-as-cop plot twist, the movie otherwise has no surprising elements at all, from the older criminal ringleader, to the arm candy he controls and mistreats, to the member of the theft clan that almost but doesn’t quite recognize Campbell as a cop.
The kingpin recruits recalcitrant youth to do his bidding, and that’s the entry point for rock music—that reliable soundtrack to ’50s crime and mayhem. There’s also the pro forma soda shop packed with rowdy teens, and vampy Mamie Van Doren performing a jukebox dance number. Later she’d dance in the women-in-prison flick Untamed Youth, so we presume her juvie delinquency bona fides were established here.
Eventually Campbell is invited into the theft ring, has a few close calls, romances the ringleader’s girl—the stunning Kathleen Case—and brings everything to its expected conclusion during a final showdown, which we can tell you because there’s no other outcome in a movie from this era, as they still adhered to the old production code dictating that criminals couldn’t win. In the final analysis, Running Wild falls into the “not bad” category, which is to say we’ve seen better juvie delinquency flicks, but we’ve also seen far worse. It premiered today in 1955.
