User Reviews

UNSPECTACULAR, FRUGAL & LOW-KEY as this may be, we have to give the production team our congratulations. They have nailed it. The story and characters within are universally recognizable in countless real life counterparts.

DONE IN SORT of a documentary style, only makes for a certain connection with reality. The inclusion of any attempt at rendering the short more dramatically "hip" would have only resulted in a crossover into the realm of "Camp" Humor a la REEFER MADNESS. Their use of the voice over narration proves to fit the bill.

WHEN FULLY CONSIDERED and taken as in light of the message behind it and the economy of filming employed, THE DROPOUT holds up very well today, over a half century later. It could very well be remade with a modern, all-inclusive attitude. (It has a completely all-white, middle class cast)

SUCH A PROJECT would be highly successful in reaching inner-city, poor and minority kids, who need to think about the lessons expounded much more than any others.

I saw this gem years ago and my recollection of it is not great. I do, however, remember it as a wonderfully campy mellodrama, set in Hollywood, concerning a would-be actress who seduces a high-school student, bringing him into her dark and sleazy underworld.

The opening scene is quite memorable. A tour bus is stopped at an intersection, the female lead crosses the street, a tourist asks excitedly, "Is she a star?" The tour guide replies, "NO, she's a nobody." Great, isn't it?

This Sid Davis short chronicles the career arc of a high school drop out in the second person, as the droning narrator talks about YOU! The ill-paying, dead-end jobs; the alienation from friends; the anomie; the acculturation and finally the Bad Companions. After that... well, that's as far as it gets.

Of course Davis doesn't use the sociological terms, but that's what these stages are. It's well done on one level, but that narrator is as dull as it gets.