jefbecco I think that people miss the historical aspect of this movie. It was 1960 and Hollywood was just figuring out how to make a "real" and gritty crime drama. Yes the film is bizarre - Father Knows Best meets The Wild Ones or The Blackboard Jungle. The average scriptwriter probably wasn't real familiar with the daily life of street criminals and the language would have gone right over their head.But the movie shows the by 1960 crime was becoming more of a concern for the average middle class American family. People were starting to learn that their safe, secure little worlds, weren't and that the crime of the "lower class" neighborhoods was moving into their daily life.By 1970 middle class America would be much sadder and wiser, but this film shows that crime was a concern in during the good old days of President Ike.Basically it's an interesting look at the time.It's one of the few older movies I've come across in which there is a reference to a character, even a villain, using Cocaine. Yes the thugs are too clean and they don't look like they smell. As a cop I can tell you the one thing that movies don't convey is the smell of that world. How can they?The only movie that I can think of that came the closest was "Training Day".Don't compare this movie to modern productions, it isn't fair. Overacting and melodramatic scripts were normal and expected. Just watch shows like Star Trek,Route 66, The Big Valley and The Fugitive. Those shows were over the top by our standards, but not back then.It isn't that bad.

moviewatchinguy The bizarre 'hepcat' language from the punks, their oh-so-clever 'street' names, the just-plain-corny phrases from the adults('Torno do me a favor. Stay as sweet as you are'), the ridiculous plot, the awful acting - these all add up to one laughably awful film. Like any bad accident, you just can't turn away.Joby Baker gives the only decent and believable performance. The others characters' roles were so cluttered with clichés and overdone acting that Joby's work seemed Oscar-worthy by comparison.Jeffery Hunter was much better in a later role, on Star Trek - strapped into a box with just one blinking yes/no light and no dialog.It amazes me that Dennis Hopper has continued to get work in spite of performances like this.

hop2hop4 Pretty good movie and relative to the times. But It was the song "Ruby Duby Du" that I remember. Its one of those tunes that once it gets into your head you can not stop it. I remember it being played throughout the movie but that was 46 years ago; maybe it was just the play on the radio and of course; bought the 45 as well. It was a hit song at the time. The gang leader's girl was named Ruby. As far as the film, story, itself; I remember the impression that movie gave me was one of helplessness or "how to fight such a terrible gang of young people". After all, its just a dad and his family. This was a movie about young thugs and a family. I could relate to the family but was frightened by the cold heartlessness of the gang. I remember the scene where the gang had entered the family's home and scratched the words "Key Witness" on the roof of their automobile inside the attached garage. That scene, for me, started the scary meanness threaded throughout the rest of the story. And oh yes, "the circle" with the father in the middle and finally one of the gang members went back-to-back with the dad as the movie's second hero. As I recall the daughter kinda liked that boy. Only the "Ruby Duby Du" song helped ease the tenseness for this 11 year old in 1960. I downloaded that song just a couple of years ago. Pretty cool dad...daddy-o.Al

jayson-4 It's quite possible that not a single motive or action in this entire film resembles anything human. Look at what you can learn from it: You receive a phone call in a supermarket that threatens your family? Don't hesitate to let your wife go off by herself to get "one last thing." One of your kids is shot in the schoolyard by a coke-crazed gang member? By all means let your other kid finish out the school day. And above all, try to involve yourself in one of the most ineptly choreographed climactic fight sequences in the history of cinema. There are literally hundreds of stroke-inducing moments in this truly moronic, dime store Cinemascope mess. "Key Witness" seems to have sprung from some kind of weirdly fastidious "social consciousness" of its period, as if it were the philosophical love child of Ronald-Reagan liberals. But whatever its context, the film now appears to have been constructed by Martians with powerful telescopes.