Jail Bait (1954)

aka Hidden Face

How bad is it? It's Ed Wood's best film - so, pretty bad.
Should you see it? Sure.

After the truly terrible Glen or Glenda, Ed Wood directed a noir-ish crime drama that has a typically lurid plot idea and terrible execution. It has many of the same actors as Glen or Glenda, plus the first screen appearance of muscleman Steve Reeves, who plays a cop that takes off his shirt more often than cops usually do. The plot has youth Timothy Farrell falling in with minor gangster Lyle Talbot and this leads to a shooting death, which Talbot pins on Farrell by killing him and then placing his body where no one would ever look... in a closet. Farrell's dad just happens to be an expert plastic surgeon who can make anyone look like anything and Talbot has him alter his appearance. The twist ending is so obvious you can probably piece it together from this post. What people most remember about this film is the terrible music score; Wood reportedly lost his original soundtrack, so he borrowed the one from Ron Ormond's "Mesa of Lost Women" (which I will review), meaning that squad cars race down the street to the accompaniment of flamenco guitar. The music's quite nice - in small doses - but it becomes aggravating quickly. Ormond's filmed minstrel show "Yes Sir, Mr. Bones" also is used as filler, so you get to see actors in black face for no real reason.