| The Cry Baby Killer | |
| Director: | Joe Addis |
| Producer: | Roger Corman David Kramarsky David March |
| Starring: | Harry Lauter Jack Nicholson Carolyn Mitchell |
| Music: | Gerald Fried |
| Cinematography: | Floyd Crosby |
| Editing: | Irene Morra |
| Distributor: | Allied Artists Pictures Corporation |
| Runtime: | 61 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
The Cry Baby Killer is a 1958 teen exploitation film produced by Roger Corman that marked Jack Nicholson's film debut. The film was out of print and difficult to find until 2006, when it was issued on DVD for the first time by Buena Vista Home Entertainment as part of its Roger Corman Classics series.
After Jimmy Wallace is beaten by Manny Cole and his friends over Carole, Jimmy confronts him and challenges him to a fight outside the café; during a struggle, Jimmy grabs a gun from one of Manny's friends and two gunshots ring out. A nearby police officer corners Jimmy, who then rushes into a room and takes a worker and a mother with her baby hostage. After a prolonged and tense hostage situation, Carole begs Jimmy to come out, who then does, surrendering himself to the police and releasing the hostages.
Corman later claimed that The Cry Baby Killer was the first film that he produced that didn't return a profit, although he said that it earned back its budget from TV rights. Corman also said that he'd been abroad during preproduction while much of the script was changed by the producer. Corman returned to Hollywood 2 days before filming began and tried to reverse the changes, but was only partially successful.[1]