After 6 months, Joe (James Dean), a countryboy turned criminal once having
moved to the big city, comes out of jail, only to learn his wife Barbie (Naomi
Riordan) has left the city. In a fit of rage, he beats diner owner Poppa
(Rudolph Weiss) into a koma, Joe's only friend in the city ... but also the man
who has suggested to Barbie to leave. Meanwhile in the country: Barbie has
moved in with Joe's dad (Ted Osborne) - god knows why - when the 2 learn that
Poppa was beaten up, & they suspect Joe right from the start. But then Joe,
fed up with city life & wanting to start anew in the country, comes home to
dad, & he assures them he had nothing to do with Poppa's death. Both dad
& Barbie soon start to believe him, mainly because they want to believe
him, because they want him to return to the country & start anew. When
big city detective Case (Robert Simon), who has already booked Joe twice, &
(rightly) suspects him of having beaten up Poppa too, comes by to question Joe,
his dad even gives him a false alibi ... Everything again seems fine &
dandy, until Poppa dies from his injuries & now it's murder, & dad is
no longer willing to lie for his son. Joe wants to escape with Barbie, to start
anew somewhere else, as long as it's in the country, but Barbie
(understandably) refuses .... & soon Joe finds himself hiding out in his
room, while the house is surrounded by cops ... & of course in the end he
dies, riddled with bullets. Considering James Dean's later career
(& his everlasting reputation) as the perpetual Rebel without a Cause
(1955), this movie is a rather interesting precursor, & Dean's performance
really is ok, the rest of this tv-show though is not: The story tries to be
profound, but everytime it attempts to say something meaningful, it only
delivers a sappy cliché, invariably celebrating the inherent goodness of
country life & condemning that moloch called big city ... but really not
having to say much about it. Plus Ted Osborne's performance as dad is terrible.
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