College Confidential - 1960

No Film Ever Dared Touch This Theme Before!

Steve 'Mac' Macinter (Steve Allen) is a college professor at Collins College. He is conducting a survey of the young students at the school. He wants to know more about their lifestyle, which includes questions of their attitude of sex and relationships. Remember, this is 1960 so you can imagine what kind of problems this might cause. Funny that there are still parents today that believe there kids are better off not knowing the facts of life and that the parents are better off not knowing what the kids know, but that is a discussion for a latter time.

Anyway, Steve is shooting some 16mm movies of the kids at the beach when he meets a beautiful reporter and they hook up. A party is planned for all the students in which they could see themselves in the film and have some punch. When the punch turns out to be spiked and some unexpected footage is mixed in the Steve's black and white moves, all hell breaks out. What ends up is Steve on trial in front of the whole town, What does the drug store owner with the beautiful young daughter have to do with it all? You'll have to watch and find out.

The film also stars Jayne Meadows, Mamie Van Doren, Rocky Marciano, Mickey Shaughnessy, Cathy Crosby, Herbert Marshall and Conway Twitty. Walter Winchell has a cameo as himself along with several other reporters of the day.

It really isn't a good film but a little better than most give it credit, when put into an historical context. After all, it was 1960! There is actually no sex or exploitation in this film, which is surprising when you look at some of the other films of director Albert Zugsmith. In 1960, he also directed Sex Kittens Go to College and The Private Lives of Adam and Eve. By the mid 60's he would create the classics, The Incredible Sex Revolution, Psychedelic Sexualis and Movie Star, American Style or; LSD, I Hate You.


I thinks that in 1960, this film probably seemed real progressive but if it was made ten, or even five years later, I'm sure it would have seemed outdated and silly. That was because the world really changed in the 1960s.