Back to school! And that means one thing here in Black & White World: switchblades and JDs.
Today's youth demand bongos
Almost James-Bondian there for a moment. (It's by Nicholas Carras.) At least with this one we have bongos up front, to let you know we're dealing with thrill-crazy youth who'll stop at nothing to get their kicks! Why, look at this guy, driving across Rubicon Street without even signaling!
Oh we hate this guy and all his troops.
When you're a Caes you're a Caes near and far / from your public high school to your SPQR
We're pitched into a life-and-death struggle right away; the stakes couldn't be higher.
The forces of the old Republic:
This is a level of JD sociopathy the screen hasn't dared to show:
That's John Ashley, who went on to produce "The A Team," among other things. He's supposed to be evil here, and he is indeed manipulative, conniving, and bent on winning the school council meeting so he can gain power and riches - really - but he seems too decent a guy to pull of this bad character.
His imdb page quotes him thus:
This is a terrible thing to admit, but maybe the key to my success with exploitation films is that I always LIKED those movies, and I never had any real reason to turn them down. I just enjoyed doing them.
Well, it's not a particularly interesting movie. We soon learn that Caesar has rich parents who are off in Europe, leaving him with the butler:
They send him money so he can enjoy himself, but it just makes him cry himself to sleep.
There's a race, and a popular kid is killed. Eventually everyone goes from despising Mat, aka the Caesar, to hating him. The punishment for being a petty thug, a braggart, a brute, and a careless fool who drives others to die? He's alone on his birthday.
Until everyone shows up to give him his come-uppance -
And he gets punched by the really popular guy. Then everyone leaves him alone, and he can't believe his best friend Cricket abandoned him.
