Teenager in Love
“That’s the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up.” Walt Disney
The 1961 movie “Look in Any Window” starring Paul Anka tells the story of Craig Fowler, an alienated teen, and his dysfunctional, uncaring parents. With captions like, “The shades are open…and their morals are showing,” the film is set in a modern suburbia where all the houses have picture windows.
The movie, shot in black and white on a low budget, was of a type called teen exploitation, or teensploitation, which featured stories of teen angst set against a backdrop of post-World War II America.
Titles like, “Teenage Rebel,” “Youth Runs Wild,” “Teenage Crime Wave,” and “Dragstrip Girl,” filled the drive-in movie theaters in the 1950s and 60s, promising sexual titillation right up to the limit of what was permissible.
“Look in Any Window” was directed by William Alland who wrote and produced science fiction and horror films, such as, “It Came from Outer Space,” and the legendary, “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” “Look in Any Window” was his only time directing.
Paul Anka’s character, Craig, is a shy and awkward teenager who doesn’t fit in anywhere he goes. He becomes a Peeping Tom who spies on his female neighbors while wearing a mask.
Craig’s parents carry on almost as if Craig doesn’t exist. His alcoholic father has just lost his job as the film begins and he spends his time either pouring drinks or being passed out drunk.
Craig’s mother is an electric sexpot, plugged in and ready to go. She prances about in revealing swimsuits and shimmies as she moves around the house.
Her attention is fixed on Gareth Lowell, her next-door neighbor, a slick, reptilian character who’s always looking for action. “Look at his new sports car,” she says dreamily to her husband. “What a bomb!”
Craig looks on at his parents, dumbfounded by what he sees. “Be home by midnight,” his mother says routinely over her shoulder as he leaves the house.
Wandering crowded, neon-lit streets, Craig experiences everything from a distance. Bullied by schoolmates he meets, he retreats, their mocking laughter following him.
He passes young lovers cuddling in the shadows. He regards them curiously as if they were zoo animals.
Meanwhile, Craig’s mother is watering the lawn in a sundress and high heel sandals when Gareth pulls up in his new car. He flashes a lecherous grin, then reaches over and opens the passenger door.
She hesitates, looking back at the house where her husband is out cold. Then she throws the hose aside and climbs in.
The Lowells have a daughter, Eileen, the same age as Craig, who is often the object of Craig’s voyeurism.
Craig arrives home finding the hose running on the sidewalk and his mother nowhere in sight. He tries to rouse his father to no avail. He sees a half-finished glass of whiskey and impulsively downs it.
Eileen is swimming in the pool when Craig emerges from the bushes separating the two houses. She waves him in, and they start splashing one another playfully. Craig becomes amorous, stealing kisses.
“I’ve never seen you like this,” Eileen tells him, and he replies, “I’ve never been like this.”
As he persists, Eileen becomes nervous and climbs out of the pool, runs across the patio, and crashes over a glass table.
Panicked, Craig flees, seconds before neighbors arrive to rescue Eileen. Two cops who have been staking out the masked prowler appear, but Eileen doesn’t say anything about Craig being there.
The movie comes to a climax the next day, the Fourth of July, at the Lowell’s annual pool party. Craig apologizes to Eileen for the night before.
“Why cover up for me?” he says.
“Something told me I shouldn’t let them get hold of you,” she tells him. “I didn’t want them to hurt you.”
“Did you ever do something you couldn’t help doing?” Craig asks.
Across the way, Craig’s mother is making a spectacle dancing erotically with Gareth. Craig sees his father collapsed on a lounge chair, and he hurries angrily off.
As fireworks burst overhead, one of the cops spots Craig climbing a rooftop and pulling on his mask. The cop fires his gun in the air and gives pursuit.
Craig jumps from the roof and tries to get away, but the cop is right behind him and tackles him to the ground. The partygoers all gather around as Craig is unmasked.
His mother rushes to his side and asks the cop, “What are you going to do to him?”
The cop tells her, “The judge will see he gets help, that’s what he needs. He needs help.”
In the end, Paul Anka is taken away for psychiatric evaluation. “Are you going to provide the kind of home life he needs?” the cop asks his parents.
“We’ll do it,” Craig’s father declares, while his mother says, “I hope we can.”
Writing at the time, New York Times film critic Howard Thompson called the movie, “A broadly sensationalized melodrama,” saying, “Ugly and even sickening as it is, this strange little film may grip some spectators,” adding, “It’s a miracle that the psychotic young protagonist wasn’t carrying on like Jack the Ripper instead.”
When the commotion is over, Eileen’s mother tells Gareth that she and Eileen will be leaving him, disgusted by his playboy ways. “I hope you’ll be happy,” she says without meaning it.
“If you’ve got money,” Gareth says with a rueful smile, “who needs happiness?”
Troubled, confused, and looking for happiness, a teenager like Craig is caught between the two worlds of childhood and mature life. But the simplicity of childhood is gone, and the future is a mystery.
Teens look to grownups for guidance on how to behave, and what to believe, and how to cope with new-found emotions. But what happens when adults fall short?
While Eileen and Craig are together at the party, she gestures around to the inebriated guests who are acting like crazy children, and whispers, “There are adult delinquents, too.”
O’Connell Driscoll
June 2024
oconnelldriscoll@gmail.com