Dangerous Years ** (1947, Billy Halop, Scotty Beckett, Richard Gaines, Ann E Todd, Marilyn Monroe) – Classic Movie Review 7602

Director Arthur Pierson’s modest 1947 youth-oriented B-movie crime drama Dangerous Years stars Billy Halop, Scotty Beckett, Richard Gaines and Ann E Todd, but, though far from negligible, it is really only remembered because Marilyn Monroe makes her first on screen appearance as Evie the waitress in the restaurant scene.

Donald Curtis plays Jeff Carter, history teacher at the local school, who starts up a boys’ club to put an end delinquency in the God-fearing American town of Middleton. Billy Halop plays young hoodlum Danny Jones, who shows up and influences teenagers Doris (Ann E Todd), Willy (Scotty Beckett) and Leo (Darryl Hickman). All four hang out at the Gopher Hole, a new juke-box road house restaurant outside town, where Eve works as waitress.

[Spoiler alert] Jeff discovers that a warehouse robbery is being planned by Willy, Gene (Dickie Moore) and Danny, and tries to stop them. In the struggle a gunshot goes off, and Jeff is killed by Danny, who is put on trial.

Marilyn Monroe in her brief scene as waitress Evie in Dangerous Years (1947).

Dangerous Years runs 62 minutes, is made by Sol M Wurtzel Productions, is released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Arnold Belgard, is shot in black and white by Benjamin H Kline, and is produced by Sol M Wurtzel, who paid Monroe $125 for her work. It is scored by Raoul Kraushaar (as Ralph Stanley), with Art Direction by Walter Koessler.

The main cast are Billy Halop as Danny Jones, Scotty Beckett as Willy Miller, Ann E Todd as Doris Martin, Richard Gaines as Edgar Burns, Jerome Cowan as Weston, Darryl Hickman as Leo Emerson, Dickie Moore as Gene Spooner, Gil Stratton as Tammy McDonald and Marilyn Monroe as Evie.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7602

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