Johnny Legend’s Deadly Doubles: Naked Youth + Teen Mania

 

Picture: C     Sound: C     Extras: B-     Film: C

 

 

As part of a series of silly indie films of the past making it to DVD, the Johnny Legend series from Arcanum offers this first volume featuring the 1960 B-film Naked Youth (aka Wild Youth from its re-release) and its 73 minutes of camp and silliness as teen criminals break free and help those who are free realize how repressed they really are.  Only sex, violence and bad acting can be the result from the newfound freedom.

 

The real highlight of this DVD is the section dubbed Teen Mania, a terrific collection of clips including the following trailers.  It runs just over 50 minutes:

 

 

The Flaming Teenage

Curse Of A Teenage Nazi (aka When Men Are Beasts)

Rock Around The Clock

Rock Around The World

Teenage Torture

Rock, Rock, Rock

Rockabilly Baby

Motorcycle Gangs

Hot Rod Gang/High School Hellcats

Johnny Trouble

horror promo

Cry Baby Killer

I Was A Teenaged Werewolf

Teenage Caveman

rock star promo

Lost Lonely & Vicious

Young, Winning & Eager

The Proper Time (with Tom “Billy Jack” Laughlin)

Key Witness

Hey, Let’s Twist

color ballroom twist piece – part 1

Werewolf Is A Girls’ Dormitory (The Ghoul In School!) in Nerve-O-Rama

The Explosive Generation (with William Shatner)

color ballroom twist piece – part 2

Ring-A-Dong Rhythm

The Horror Of Party Beach

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living & Became Mixed-Up Zombies

The Big T.N.T. Show

Teen-Age Strangler

Teenage Gang Debs

The Thrill Killers

The Wild Ones On Wheels

Classic Vespa motor scooter promo

Teen Age Tramp

Disk-O-Tek Holiday

Hallucination Generation

The Young Runaways

Hot Rods To Hell

 

 

Virtually all are 1.33 X 1 like the film itself and have the same mixed picture quality, though the feature film has its moments of sharpness and clarity.  Many of the clips are from film sources, but some are from videotape.  The sound is Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono all around, though a recently taped color intro by Johnny Legend is a bit clearer.  It is also the low point of this disc, but is easily skipped and ignored.

 

The film makes a great example of a teen exploitation production from its time, but fans will love these trailers and they are highly recommended.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo