The Horror in "Last Date"

The Effectiveness of Restraint in the Horror of the Last Date 

By Denise Noe

The first question that must be addressed in this essay is whether or not the subject is even worth discussing. After all, the subject is a little-known driver’s training film made more than 60 years ago. Why pay attention to it? I am writing about it because I believe there is a case that this film turned out to be more than it was probably intended to be and that, most importantly, what it turned out to be illustrates  how suggestion can trump showing in its emotional power. Only 19 minutes long, directed by the prolific but not famous Lewis D. Collins, the 1950 black and white short film Last Date is in fact a tight, taut, finely crafted horror picture and deserves appreciation as such.

Last Date opens with a brief scene of young people enthusiastically dancing, followed by the title card over a silhouette of a boy and girl kissing. Then we are in the room of a teenaged Jeanne (Joan Taylor). Her back is always turned to the camera. We do not see her face but shoulder-length dark hair that is silky and slightly waved. There is the suggestion of loveliness as well as freshness in that image.  She is penning a letter to a friend. In the voiceover, we hear her sadly telling her friend of life-altering events that began innocently at a high school football game.

The film switches to a high school football game being played. Then we see Jeanne and Kathy (Sally Hughes) sitting happily side by side in the bleachers. Then we see the two young ladies among a small knot of high schoolers milling around on the grass outside a building. Talking with Kathy, Jeanne wonders aloud which of two boys with whom she should go home since she has been dating the two most popular boys in the school — both of whom just distinguished themselves in the football game. “I wish I had that problem,” Kathy says wistfully lightly, apparently envious of Jeanne’s ability to captivate boys. Right on time, the two boys, Nick (Richard York) and Larry (Robert V. Stern), show up.

This seems like the right time to say a bit about the four major actors in this short. As is usually true of motion pictures featuring teenaged characters, the high school kids look a bit old — because the actors playing them are not teens but young adults.  Although it would work for cinematic realism if the actors playing teenagers actually were teenagers, the special rules filmmakers must follow when employing minors means that this is rarely the case. For example, in that classic teen angst motion picture, Rebel Without A Cause, 17-year-old James Stark was played by 24-year-old James Dean. Indeed, when this writer sees a high school classroom in a motion picture or TV show, she often wonders if everyone in the class flunked for about eight years straight! 

    Thus it is little surprise that Taylor was 21 and York 22 when they played high-school kids in Last Date. I was unable to find the ages of Hughes and Stern but believe it safe to surmise that they were in their 20s when they played in this film. Taylor and York enjoyed distinguished acting careers. Taylor became widely known to audience from the films Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957). She also had a recurring role for two years on the TV Western The Rifleman before leaving acting in 1963 to become a full-time housewife. Making the small name transition from “Richard” to “Dick,” York became famous as the first, often exasperated Darrin Stevens in the popular TV sitcom Bewitched. Hughes had a much briefer and less ostentatious acting career although she often played varied roles on the classic sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. By contrast, Robert V. Stern boasts no credit on the Internet Movie Database other than Last Date; the short may have been his last — and first — date with a film career.

Back to the scene outside the stadium after the football game. Talking with Kathy, Jeanne admiringly notes that Nick’s Dad recently gave him a hot-rod car. “But the way he drives!” Kathy remarks. The two boys come over to the girls and Nick graciously offers a ride to both girls. Kathy states that she has already had a ride with Nick and does not wish a second ride with “this candidate for teenicide.” She helpfully explains that “teenicide” is a term often used by a disc jockey to describe teenagers who kill themselves, and perhaps others, before their 20th birthday through speeding and reckless driving.

In fact, as Paul Mavis notes in DVD Talk, the Lumberman’s Mutual Casualty Company “coined the term ’teenicide’ in the late 1940s” because of a spike in fatalities by adolescent drivers in the United States after World War II ended. However, as a “user reviewer” observed in a review on the Internet Movie Database, “The word never caught on and was soon dropped from the slang vocabulary.” 

When Kathy explains the ominous term to the small group, Nick contemptuously snorts, “Teenicide!” He tells Jeanne that he learned to drive from his Dad who has never had an accident and has “only” been arrested three times. Of course, the latter disclosure is a big red flag — as obvious as a red light or stop sign. Nevertheless Jeanne allows Nick to drive her home. He takes a long way home but cheerfully and recklessly goes over the speed limit.

When Jeanne exits the hot rod for her home, she sees Larry sitting on the swing on her porch. Why is he there? He tells her he is concerned about the way Nick drives. Larry asks her to remember what Kathy said about “teenicide.” Jeanne seems to view his concern as overwrought and he goes on to tell her not to take unnecessary risks with her life. Despite being peeved at what she views as hyper-caution, she accepts a date that evening with Larry. She will go to the dance with him.

Thus, the film sets up a situation in which our heroine, Jeanne, finds herself pulled between the exciting bad boy and the responsible good boy. In this case, the boys are differentiated by their driving styles: Nick, the speeding, lane-changing “candidate for teenicide” and Larry, the careful driver who respects the speed limit. 

On the way to the dance, Jeanne is frustrated by Larry’s way behind the wheel, chiding, “You drive like a slowpoke!” She also rags, “Hurry up, you can beat that red light!” Larry turns on the radio and — wouldn’t you know it? — The voice that comes on is that of the disc jockey warning against “teenicide.” Jeanne derides the scolding d.j. as “corny” and tells Larry she is sick of hearing about teenicide.

Cut to the dance. Jeanne and Larry energetically enjoy dancing. “Larry’s a marvelous dancer,” Jeanne says in a voiceover in the letter she is writing about the film’s events. As might be expected, Nick shows up. He  cuts in to dance with Jeanne. “Want to take a little ride around the lake?” Nick asks. “Not more than fifteen minutes,” she says. Once in the car, Nick speeds and weaves. “Be careful, Nick,” Jeanne urges. “I’m always in a hurry,” Nick asserts. He also says, “Just give ‘em the horn and they’ll get out of the way.” Distressed by Nick’s driving habits,  the word “teenicide” plays repeatedly through our heroine’s head.

It is playing right before the (expected) crash.

Back to the room in which the film started. Jeanne is writing the letter. We see only the back of her head. She looks out the window, envious of teens having fun. She writes to her friend, and tells the audience, that she was too ashamed of her face, which was disfigured in the crash, to attend X’s funeral or those of the people he killed in the other car.

We still see only the back of her head as she looks in the mirror. She breaks the mirror. The film ends.

In less than 20 minutes, the viewer has been treated to a film that is, as Mavis asserts, “Dizzyingly crammed with more melodrama and action than some highly regarded 50s noir.” He rightly elaborates that it is a “marvel of pinpoint scripting, expressive direction from Lewis D. Collins, and perfectly matched performances.” An Internet Movie Database user reviewer correctly writes that the film boasts a “shock ending that would have made Dario Argento, Mario Bava, and William Castle proud.” 

Another IMDb reviewer suggests her scars are not shown because the filmmakers lacked the money to buy good scar make-up. However, it is also possible that the filmmakers realized it was best to leave it to the imagination of the viewers. If so, this writer believes the correct decision was made.  For the power of Last Date, a power wonderfully out of proportion to its running time and budget, lies in the restraint of its horror, a restraint that leads a powerful sense of loss and damage of that lingers long after the finish of the brief film.

Bibliography

Mavis, Paul. DVD Talk. http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/56944/troubled-teens

“Last Date.” Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250489

Last Date. https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hsimp=yhs-att_001&hspart=att&p=last+date+1950+youtube#id=1&vid=fbca54b788c20d03b6fdc84bf79a466e&action=click