The Cool and the Crazy
Encyclopedia
The Cool and the Crazy is a 1958 motion picture that was distributed by American-International Pictures
. The producer of the film, Elmer Rhoden Jr., was president of the Kansas City, Missouri
-based Commonwealth Theaters chain, a prominent chain of motion picture theaters with stretched through Missouri
, Kansas
, Arkansas
, Iowa
, Nebraska
, and South Dakota
. Back in 1956, Rhoden Jr. had seen that teenagers were the best new audience for films (as television was drawing most adults out of theaters), and had come up with the idea of starting his own small film complex in Kansas City to produce low-budget teen exploitation films for these audiences, primarily for showing in drive-in theaters. Already, such teen films as Rebel Without a Cause
, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
, I Was a Teenage Werewolf
, and Rock Around the Clock
had been huge successes. With $45,000 raised with the help of local businessmen, Rhoden Jr. hired Kansas City filmmaker Robert Altman
to make the juvenile delinquency melodrama The Delinquents, which was sold to United Artists
and released in 1957, grossing $1,000,000 and also firmly establishing Altman as a film director.
After the success of The Delinquents, Rhoden Jr. put up about $170,000 for a second film in Kansas City. Rhoden Jr. began with thinking up a title and nothing else (The Cool and the Crazy) and, because Altman was directing television shows in Hollywood, Rhoden Jr. hired Kansas City writer and a friend of Altman's - Richard C. Sarafian
- to write the screenplay for the film. Sarafian went on to direct television shows and films in California
during the 1960s and 1970s.
and the Indian Scout Statue overlooking the city, the Blue Note Club, the renowned Kansas City Jazz
hall, and several real homes and neighborhoods. Rhoden Jr. had cooperation from many local businesses and also from the Kansas City Police Department, who were contacted for several reasons.
While standing on the street between takes, actors Dick Bakalyan and Dick Jones were actually arrested for vagrancy by Kansas City police. They spent several hours in the local jail before someone explained that they were just acting for a film.
Like with The Delinquents, Rhoden Jr. had The Cool and the Crazy post-production and editing executed under professional conditions in Hollywood by Helene Turner. Rhoden Jr. also now had enough money to order an original music score, which was written and conducted by veteran film composer Raoul Kraushaar
. Kraushaar's score featured recurring versions of the film's theme song, some which were done in a fast tempo and beat, and other versions that were performed in a slower, bluesier style.
Rhoden Jr. had apparently already worked out a distribution deal with American-International. AIP made no mention of the drug plot in the trailer or on the poster, and tagged on disclaimers at the beginning and end assuring parents that this was a film made for the purpose of warning teenagers about drugs. The film was released in the spring of 1958, with the "gala world premiere" in Kansas City, which was accompanied by a live radio broadcast, house lights, live music, a dance contest, and a parade of the Kansas Citians involved in the film.
The Cool and the Crazy was a great box-office success, grossing more than $5,000,000 for AIP and was hailed as one of the most popular delinquency films of 1958.
The Cool and the Crazy has recently gained a devoted cult following
for its rabid anti-marijuana message and Dick Bakalyan's performance. It first began to be shown on television in the 1970s, when it first began to attract its following, and was released on video the next decade.
American International Pictures
American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...
. The producer of the film, Elmer Rhoden Jr., was president of the Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
-based Commonwealth Theaters chain, a prominent chain of motion picture theaters with stretched through Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
, Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
, and South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
. Back in 1956, Rhoden Jr. had seen that teenagers were the best new audience for films (as television was drawing most adults out of theaters), and had come up with the idea of starting his own small film complex in Kansas City to produce low-budget teen exploitation films for these audiences, primarily for showing in drive-in theaters. Already, such teen films as Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...
, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is an American black and white science fiction film, directed by Fred F. Sears and released by Columbia Pictures. The film is also known as Invasion of the Flying Saucers. It was ostensibly suggested by the non-fiction work Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Donald...
, I Was a Teenage Werewolf
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
I Was a Teenage Werewolf is a 1957 horror film starring Michael Landon as a troubled teenager and Whit Bissell as the primary adult. It was co-written and produced by cult film producer Herman Cohen, and was one of the most successful films released by American International Pictures...
, and Rock Around the Clock
Rock Around the Clock
"Rock Around the Clock" is a 12-bar-blues-based song written by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers in 1952. The best-known and most successful rendition was recorded by Bill Haley and His Comets in 1954...
had been huge successes. With $45,000 raised with the help of local businessmen, Rhoden Jr. hired Kansas City filmmaker Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
to make the juvenile delinquency melodrama The Delinquents, which was sold to United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
and released in 1957, grossing $1,000,000 and also firmly establishing Altman as a film director.
After the success of The Delinquents, Rhoden Jr. put up about $170,000 for a second film in Kansas City. Rhoden Jr. began with thinking up a title and nothing else (The Cool and the Crazy) and, because Altman was directing television shows in Hollywood, Rhoden Jr. hired Kansas City writer and a friend of Altman's - Richard C. Sarafian
Richard C. Sarafian
Richard C. Sarafian is an Armenian-American TV and film director. Richard Sarafian has complied a versatile career that has spanned over five decades as a director, actor and writer. He is most popular for his film Vanishing Point . He is the father of: Richard Sarafian Jr., Tedi Sarafian, Damon B...
- to write the screenplay for the film. Sarafian went on to direct television shows and films in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
during the 1960s and 1970s.
Plot
The Cool and the Crazy tells the story of Ben Saul, a reform school graduate who is transferred to a Kansas City high school. There, Ben's clowning in class ticks off the local gang of tough guys, but he soon wins all of their admiration when he begins buying them beer, taking them to dances, giving them "kicks," and then finally turning them on to marijuana. Ben is working as a frontman for a local marijuana ring, but the local police detective is hot on his trail. When a marijuna-crazed addict teenager whom Ben has sold the drug to, dies trying to hold up a filling station for drug money, the police question him and events begin to spiral out of Ben's control. In the dramatic (or melodramatic) finale, Ben ends up killing the pusher for more marijuana only to find that there is none, and gets his just deserts in a fiery car wreck. Then there is an obligatory moralizing segment, where a policeman screams at the surviving addicts, "Is this what you call 'kicks'?! Sooner or later, if you don't wise up you're all gonna wind up like this, one way or the other."Production
The film was shot in about two or three weeks on-location in Kansas City sometime in the latter part of 1957. The locations included a Kansas City high school, where most of the students got a chance to be in the film, a run-down Aberdeen Hotel in downtown Kansas City, a greasy spoon called Pat's Pig, Penn Valley ParkPenn Valley Park
Penn Valley Park is an urban park overlooking Downtown Kansas City Kansas City, Missouri.The park was developed in 1904 on land through which the Santa Fe Trail had passed. It contains two famous landmarks: The Scout and the United States' official World War I museum with its Liberty Memorial...
and the Indian Scout Statue overlooking the city, the Blue Note Club, the renowned Kansas City Jazz
Kansas City Jazz
Kansas City Jazz is a style of jazz that developed in Kansas City, Missouri and the surrounding Kansas City Metropolitan Area during the 1930s and marked the transition from the structured big band style to the musical improvisation style of Bebop...
hall, and several real homes and neighborhoods. Rhoden Jr. had cooperation from many local businesses and also from the Kansas City Police Department, who were contacted for several reasons.
While standing on the street between takes, actors Dick Bakalyan and Dick Jones were actually arrested for vagrancy by Kansas City police. They spent several hours in the local jail before someone explained that they were just acting for a film.
Like with The Delinquents, Rhoden Jr. had The Cool and the Crazy post-production and editing executed under professional conditions in Hollywood by Helene Turner. Rhoden Jr. also now had enough money to order an original music score, which was written and conducted by veteran film composer Raoul Kraushaar
Raoul Kraushaar
Raoul Kraushaar was an American composer, who worked on Hollywood features in the 1940s and 1950s. He continued working on low-budget films through the 1960s and 1970s. After that, and up through the 1980s, most of his work centered on television until his retirement; his works included musical...
. Kraushaar's score featured recurring versions of the film's theme song, some which were done in a fast tempo and beat, and other versions that were performed in a slower, bluesier style.
Rhoden Jr. had apparently already worked out a distribution deal with American-International. AIP made no mention of the drug plot in the trailer or on the poster, and tagged on disclaimers at the beginning and end assuring parents that this was a film made for the purpose of warning teenagers about drugs. The film was released in the spring of 1958, with the "gala world premiere" in Kansas City, which was accompanied by a live radio broadcast, house lights, live music, a dance contest, and a parade of the Kansas Citians involved in the film.
The Cool and the Crazy was a great box-office success, grossing more than $5,000,000 for AIP and was hailed as one of the most popular delinquency films of 1958.
The Cool and the Crazy has recently gained a devoted cult following
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
for its rabid anti-marijuana message and Dick Bakalyan's performance. It first began to be shown on television in the 1970s, when it first began to attract its following, and was released on video the next decade.