Teenage Crimewave

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Teenage Crimewave is another 1950s juvenile delinquency B-Movie.

Our story begins with a doughy old man hitting on a woman (Terry Marsh) in a bar. She lures him to be mugged. Unfortunately, another innocent girl (Jane Koberly) is brought along on a blind date with one of the girl's gang (Al).

The mugging, performed by Terry's boyfriend Mike Denton, goes off without a hitch at first, and Mike and Al get away. Jane and Terry are caught by the police, cuffed and stuffed in prison.

Because Jane doesn't know the identity of the others, she's fingered as an accomplice in the court system, and her parents are too busy being ashamed to help her out. Before long, Jane and Terry are on the way to the reformatory.

But lo! Mike has been tailing the prison van, and frees them, wounding the prison matron and killing the driving officer. But since Mike didn't kill both cops, a description is sent out, and the gang must hole up in a farmhouse. There, they take two farmers, and later their war-hero son, hostage -- but they can't call Al for help because the farmers' phone is on a party line, and anything suspicious anyone says will be overheard by someone who might tell the cops.

Can Jane prove her innocence? Can Mike and Terry's Bonnie and Clyde–like rampage be stopped?

For the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, please go to the episode recap page.

Tropes used in Teenage Crimewave include:
  • Ax Crazy: Terry really could've done better than a short-tempered, trigger-happy lunatic, which she realizes far, far too late.
  • Closed Circle: Everyone's trapped in the farmhouse for most of the movie.
  • Fan Service:

Guard: (addressing women wrapped in towels) This is the shower room.

    • Furthermore, as our cast watches the crime report on TV, pictures of the fugitives are shown. For some odd reason, Jane's photo is of her modelling a bathing suit.