ABSTRACT
Adults remain ignorant and confused about what kids do and think. This makes them hostile and mistrustful. Six years before Nicholas Ray directed Rebel Without a Cause (1955), he made the original "live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse" film, <italics>Knock on Any Door</italics> (1949). Humphrey Bogart plays an attorney, Andy, who defends a young punk accused of robbery. Even though Nick "Pretty Boy" Romano, played by John Derek, admits that he committed the robbery, he contends that he is innocent of murder. The abundance of films specifically for teenagers in the 1950s reflected changes in the demographic makeup of the United States. <italics>The Breakfast Club</italics> was highly successful, finding an abundant teenage audience. <italics>River's Edge</italics> is loosely based upon an event that took place in 1981 in Milpitas, California. The film so disturbed the townspeople that they refused to let it be shown, which only meant that people had to drive to nearby San Jose to see it.
