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(1963, aka REBEL IN THE RING) William Wellman, Jr., Arline Judge, Baynes Barron, Sandra Gale Bettin, Susan Sturtridge. Don’t expect too much and you’ll find that this B-movie is great fun—and on DVD for the first time. Wellman does a great job as a kid from the poor side of town and a part-time boxer who’s a pledge at a high profile college fraternity. He makes his money beating the hell out of his foes in the ring. He lives in fear, though, of his fraternity pals finding out about his humble beginnings and his unseemly profession, which also causes him to shun his mother. Soon things get sticky when the spoiled, rich girlfriend of one of his fraternity pals leads him on, much to the chagrin of his lower social class girlfriend wannabe. This causes big time complications and leads to lots of teenage intrigue. Mixed in all this is a great music score, featuring the King of Surf Guitar, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones. Wellman’s boxing scenes look great for a low-budget quickie like this, but in truth he (like Bob Steele) was a real-life boxer and some of his on-screen slugging is for real! A hip drive-in movie.
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