At first you think this is just another schlocky, 50s teen pic such as TCM has been burdening us with in their misbegotten Spotlight for this month...why not just make it "Bad B Pictures" and then you're not limited by age?...but then Robert Vaughn's performance, his first, as a spoiled, self pitying mama's boy (both literally and figuratively), starts to intrude on the otherwise banal proceedings and soon it starts to get under your skin and by the 20 minute mark damn if you don't find yourself, if not exactly caring about this loser, at least interested in what will befall him. Most of this reaction is attributable to Vaughn's skills , especially for portraying oleaginous scumbags, but some of it is due to a nice, low key screenplay, (at least by socially conscious, 50s teen pic standards, that is), by John McPartland and Raphael Hayes and fast paced, if a bit too TV-ish, direction from David Lowell Rich. When Vaughn's not on the screen and we're left with the more pedestrian characters played by Roger Smith and Tom Pittman, especially Smith's bland super market clerk, the movie is less compelling, but Vaughn's on screen enough so that it doesn't unduly harm the proceedings. Give it a B minus.
Review of No Time to Be Young
