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Warning! The plot synopsis of Jail Bait contains spoilers and reveals the ending.

Ed Wood's Jail Bait - Noir Schlock

Jail Bait (1954) starring Lyle Talbot, Dolores Fuller, Herbert Rawlinson, Steve Reeves, Timothy Farrell, Clancy Malone, and Theodora Thurman. Written, produced and directed by Ed Wood, Jr.

     It’s been said that Jail Bait was Ed Wood’s tribute to the 1950s TV detective series Dragnet. (It’s probably safe to say that those connected with the hit show were unaware of this honor.) Film scholars might  argue that Jail Bait should not even be considered a film noir but I say that we give Ed a break. During noir’s classic era (1940 to 1959), no director, screenwriter, producer, actor or actress had even heard of film noir. They simply made movies they hoped would entertain audiences (and, of course make, a profit). The American movie-going audiences loved the stuff of noir--like murder, adultery, greed, betrayal--even though they too  were unfamiliar with the French expression. The term “film noir” (dark or black film) was evidently coined in the 1940s by French critic Nino Frank, who referred to the dark, brooding American films like The Maltese Falcon; Murder, My Sweet; Laura; The Woman in the Window; Double Indemnity; This Gun for Hire; Lady in the Lake; Gilda; and The Killers, which had made their way to the entertainment-starved French at the end of World War II. The term didn't catch on in the U.S. until the 1970s. Ed Wood (better known for some of his other bombs, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Bride of the Monster, and Glen or Glenda) was simply imitating (albeit badly) so many other murder mystery/detective film directors and screenwriters of the era. With Jail Bait, Ed gave us a film that years later would be identified as a film noir by many of his fans, but perhaps not by stodgy college professors or rigid film students.

     For the benefit of those movie buffs from another planet, Ed Wood was noted for his, shall we say, economical production values, his use of no-name and has-been actors (his favorite being the drug-addicted and penniless former star Bela Lugosi), and atrocious dialogue, which Ed wrote himself. Jail Bait’s plot, like all of Ed's plots, is ridiculous and muddled.

     B-movie veteran Lyle Talbot and film newcomer, muscleman Steve Reeves portray LAPD detectives Inspector Johns and Lt. Lawrence, who are searching for the small-time hoods who robbed a theater of the day’s receipts, killing a security guard and wounding a female employee. Playing at the theater, incidentally, was a black-faced minstrel show from a scene in a 1951 film called Yes Sir, Mr. Bones, which, as reported in a TV Guide Online review of Jail Bait, Ed borrowed for this film. TV Guide Online also reports that the innovative director lifted Jail Bait’s annoying flamenco score from a 1953 low budget bomb called Mesa of Lost Women, which was narrated by Talbot. Jail Bait’s female lead, Dolores Fuller (Ed's real-life girlfriend at the time), had a small role in Mesa.

     But back to the plot. After the two hoods, Don Gregor (Clancy Malone) and Vic Brady (Timothy Farrell), lose pursuing cops in a slow-speed car chase through  several Los Angeles streets, Don, the guilt-stricken killer of the theater's night watchman, visits his father’s plastic surgery office at night. (All of Wood’s cheaply photographed scenes in Jail Bait take place at night, something Wood the screenwriter reminds us of fairly often in the dialogue, as if we didn’t notice). Don promises his father (played by former silent movie actor Herbert Rawlinson) that he will give himself up to police. Unfortunately, Don’s hardened criminal partner, intent on staying out of prison, kills him before he can make good on that promise. Vic and his girlfriend, Loretta (Theodore Thurman), a long-suffering victim of her man’s physical and verbal abuse, hide Don’s body in what appears to be a kitchen pantry draped by a pair of shower curtains. They then call Dr Gregor and threaten to kill his son if he doesn’t supply Vic with a new face so he can elude the cops. Dr. Gregor and his daughter, Marilyn (Dolores Fuller), who, luckily, has had some nurse's training, reluctantly agree to perform the delicate operation that evening ... on Vic’s sofa.

     While in Vic's kitchen to heat some water, germs you know, Gregor draws the shower curtains and sees his son’s body, which has been propped up in the pantry all this time. The body falls to the floor and the heartbroken doctor returns to the living room and goes to work on the unconscious man, under the watchful eye of the gun-wielding moll, who has strict orders to kill the two after the operation. Gregor manages to convince her, however, that Vic’s life will be in danger because infection could easily set in and that the bandages must be removed in two weeks (in a safe environment, of course, which turns out to be the doctor's living room).

     You’re probably wondering what Inspector Johns and Lt. Lawrence have been up to all this time. Well, they’ve been investigating, of course. Oh, and director Wood has seen to it that Lt. Lawrence (Reeves, a former Mr. America, Mr. World, and Mr. Universe) gets the opportunity to parade shirtless around the station house under the pretense of a quick shave.

     Responding to a call by Dr. Gregor when Vic’s two-week recuperation period is up, the detectives find Vic and Loretta already at the doctor's house waiting for Gregor to unveil Vic’s new face. The cops get the drop on the two but Vic isn’t worried. After all, they’ll never recognize him. The viewer can see only the back of Vic’s bandaged head and when Gregor unravels the dressing, the others’ shocked expressions seem to say “my God, he must have butchered the man.” One might think that the patient would be a little concerned after seeing that everyone in the room had recoiled in horror when looking at his new face, but he keeps up his little charade, boldly daring Inspector Johns to prove that he’s really Vic Brady. Of course, Johns is prepared for this and brings in the surviving victim of the heist, who identifies Vic as the man who killed the security guard. Knowing that it was Don who shot the guard, Vic is flabbergasted. When Johns offers him a mirror, Vic, and the viewer, finally get to see what all the fuss has been about. The world’s greatest plastic surgeon certainly did a fine job because after only a two-week healing process, Vic’s face is now an exact replica of Don’s (with the exception of those three hideous unhealed scars). Dr. Gregor has had his revenge.

     Vic flees the house, gunning down a police officer or two on the way out before being shot and killed by Inspector Johns, who, incredibly, has grown a mustache and changed into another suit and tie since the 30-second chase began. Vic falls to the ground and dramatically rolls into the pool, where he floats face down as the flamenco music blares loudly to indicate that The End, mercifully, has finally arrived.

     With the exception of Inspector Johns’ amazing transformation, Jail Bait is surprisingly free from Wood’s usual flubs (like the falling cardboard gravestones in his later Plan 9 from Outer Space). The acting however, even by veterans Talbot and Rawlinson, is still atrocious and the dialogue is strictly from the Ed Wood School of  Screenwriting. Here are just a few examples.

     Some of Jail Bait’s stars collaborated with Ed Wood on other films. Lyle Talbot, who was co-starring in TV’s The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett at the time, had already teamed up with Ed in several ventures. In 1953, he played in a half-hour TV Western pilot called “Crossroad Avenger: The Adventures of the Tucson Kid,” which Wood wrote and directed. Ed also had a small role in the pilot. That same year Talbot co-starred with Wood and another member of Wood’s stable of “legitimate” actors, Bela Lugosi, in the transvestite exploitation film, Glen or Glenda (1953). In 1959, Talbot and Lugosi appeared in what many consider to be the worst film of all time, Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. (Lugosi died before shooting began and Wood simply inserted some home movies of the actor roaming around and hamming it up. Lugosi was replaced by Mrs. Wood's chiropractor, who walked around hunched over, holding his cape in front of his face and pretending to be Bela ).

     Timothy Farrell co-starred in Wood’s Glen or Glenda, along with Wood's girlfriend, Fuller, who also collaborated with Ed in his Bride of the Monster (1955). She also had bit roles in two earlier films noirs, The Blue Gardenia and Playgirl, and in the 1960s she composed songs for a number of Elvis Presley movies, including Blue Hawaii, Kid Galahad, Fun in Acapulco, Change of Habit, and others. This was Herbert Rawlinson’s first and, as noted above, last acting job for Ed Wood. Ditto for Theodora Thurman, a photographer’s model, who seems to have disappeared from the Hollywood scene after Jail Bait. Steve Reeves went on to star in a number of Italian and French adventure films in the 50s and 60s, including the well-known Hercules and Hercules Unchained.

Bette Davis in Warner Bros. Beyond the Forest (1949)