History Film / IAccuseMyParents

* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim: Kitty cruelly breaks up with Jimmy to try and protect him from Blake... who is hiding in the closet in the same room.

* DropInCharacter: Shirley. She just occasionally shows up at the Wilsons' house, with no explanation for who she is and why she's there, to the point of walking in the front door without knocking, much to the bewilderment of Joel and the 'Bots, who call her a GreekChorus. She flirts with Jimmy's father, giving the impression she might be a mistress, but even the full version of the movie leaves her role largely unexplained.

* TheFreelanceShameSquad: "Hee hee hee, she's ''drunk''!"[[note]]Crow: It's funny![[/note]]
* FoodPorn: The cafe owner lays it on pretty thick to the obviously hungry Jimmy.

* InformedAbility: We only ever heard one sentence of Jimmy's supposedly brilliant essay.

* MurderTheHypotenuse: The threat against Jimmy, which is why Kitty lies about their affair.
* NiceGuy: Al the diner cook.

* RealMenLoveJesus: Third time's the charm for the diner cook. He's perfectly willing to give Jimmy food, lodging and a job on the sole condition that Jimmy attend church with him on Sundays.

* {{Adorkable}}: Jimmy has shades of this during his MeetCute encounter with Kitty. He's over it by the time he delivers her shoes (and starts piling on the lies).

This being a pseudo-propaganda film in the 40's, this pretty much ensures Jimmy will fall into a pit of debauchery and crime, and indeed he does in short order. Almost immediately upon meeting a pretty lounge singer named Kitty, Jimmy gets hired by her boyfriend, mobster kingpin Charlie Blake. After running a few errands for Blake, stupidly never suspecting that his boss, a "money man" who asks him to deliver vaguely defined "packages" at odd hours while insisting that he doesn't tell anyone else about it, is a criminal (or that he's even Kitty's boyfriend, as Jimmy starts dating her) Jimmy eventually figures out the truth and goes on the run, then later accidentally kills Blake in a scuffle.

''I Accuse My Parents'' is an American ExploitationFilm from 1944.

This being a pseudo-propaganda film in the 40's, this pretty much ensures Jimmy will fall into a pit of debauchery and crime, and indeed he does in short order. Almost immediately upon meeting a pretty lounge singer named Kitty, Jimmy gets hired by her boyfriend, mobster kingpin Charlie Blake. After running a few errands for Blake, stupidly never suspecting that his boss is a criminal (or that he's even Kitty's boyfriend, as Jimmy starts dating her) Jimmy eventually figures out the truth and goes on the run, then later accidentally kills Blake in a scuffle.

* AbusiveParents: Unintentionally downplayed. His mother drinks, his father gambles and also drinks, and they're both constantly fighting in front of their son. [[ParentalNeglect And they are also neglectful to Jimmy most of the time due to rarely being home.]] But when they actually are around to interact with Jimmy, they are always nothing but nice to him. They never hit him or yell at him, and they make sure he's provided for, even if they do tend to ignore him a lot. Even their worst fights with each other never manage to go beyond harsh words. It's certainly not an ideal family but there's still plenty of real life victims of parental abuse who would gladly trade their parents for Jimmy's.

* AbusiveParents: Unintentionally downplayed. His mother drinks, his father gambles and also drinks, and they're both constantly fighting in front of their son. On the other hand, they're always nice to Jimmy. They never hit him or yell at him, and they make sure he's provided for, even if they do tend to ignore him a lot. Even their worst fights with each other never manage to go beyond harsh words. It's certainly not an ideal family but there's still plenty of real life victims of parental abuse who would gladly trade their parents for Jimmy's.

-->''"We were going this way, that way, this way''
-->''Then love took us by the hand''
-->''Helped us right along, showed us the '''kiss-way'''''
-->''To the promised land..."''

** Teaching parents to pay more attention to their kids than their booze? Not a bad idea. Teaching them to do so by showing a young man time and again making completely stupid decisions to the point where he goes on the run from the mob and gets charged for manslaughter...''despite none of that having anything to do with his drunk parents?'' Sure, maybe if they'd paid more attention to him, he might not have gotten away with all those choices, but Jimmy makes so many stupid decisions that it's hard to believe bad parenting alone was the problem.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: Jimmy winning the essay contest seems to be a pretty big deal.
** It's implied to be a regional or statewide contest.

** No one in the film cares that Jimmy is a 16-year-old high school student who drinks, and even admits he's been "hitting the stuff kinda hard lately." (Some states did have a drinking age of 18 in the 1940s, but it's still odd that he has no problem ordering numerous cocktails at a nightclub.)

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/i_accuse_my_parents_374.jpg]]

* TheFreelanceShameSquad: "Hee hee hee, she's ''drunk''!"

* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim: Kitty cruelly breaks up with Jimmy to try and protect him from Blake... who is hiding in the closet in the same room. She never actually lets Jimmy know about this fact despite numerous opportunities to do so.

* ItsAllMyFault: A scene cut from the MST3K episode has Kitty blaming herself for Jimmy's problems, as she foolishly introduced him to Blake.

* GenreSavvy: The cafe owner, who picks up that Jimmy is packing and desperate for cash, even before he sits down. He successfully talks him out of doing something he might regret.

* DropInCharacter: Shirley. She just occasionally shows up at the Wilsons' house, with no explanation for who she is and why she's there, much to the bewilderment of Joel and the 'Bots, who call her a GreekChorus. She flirts with Jimmy's father, giving the impression she might be a mistress, but even the full version of the movie leaves her role largely unexplained.

* CluelessAesop: Teaching parents to pay more attention to their kids than their booze? Not a bad idea. Teaching them to do so by showing a young man time and again making completely stupid decisions to the point where he goes on the run from the mob and gets charged for manslaughter...''despite none of that having anything to do with his drunk parents?'' Sure, maybe if they'd paid more attention to him, he might not have gotten away with all those choices, but Jimmy makes so many stupid decisions that it's hard to believe bad parenting alone was the problem.

* IdiotBall: The last act of the film wouldn't have happened if he'd just gone to the police earlier, as they'd likely be glad to trade immunity for a low-grade courier in exchange for testimony to put two high-level mob members who'd just committed murder away and possibly get their boss as well. Also, the fight in which Jimmy accidentally killed Blake wouldn't have happened if he'd just stayed away and let the police do their jobs instead of confronting him personally. Most of Jimmy's mistakes are the result of being oblivious to what's actually going on, these are just simple stupidity.

** The dedication at the end says that the movie was made to entertain the YanksWithTanks overseas (it was 1944). Let's see: a film where a kid goes completely off the rails due to his parent's absence is shown to a large group of young forced-to-be-absent fathers, some of whom might never come home. Brilliant!

* ItsAllMyFault: A scene cut from the MST3k episode has Kitty blaming herself for Jimmy's problems, as she foolishly introduced him to Blake.

* NiceGuy: The diner cook.
* OnlySaneMan: Again the diner cook. Convinces Jimmy to turn himself in and talk with Kitty.

* BrokenAesop: No one in the film cares that Jimmy is a 16-year-old high school student who drinks, and even admits he's been "hitting the stuff kinda hard lately." (Some states did have a drinking age of 18 in the 1940s, but it's still odd that he has no problem ordering numerous cocktails at a nightclub.)
* CluelessAesop: Teaching parents to pay more attention to their kids than their booze? Not a bad idea. Teaching them to do so by showing a young man time and again making completely stupid decisions to the point where he goes on the run from the mob and gets charged for manslaughter...''despite none of that having to do with his drunk parents?'' Sure, maybe if they'd paid more attention to him, he might not have gotten away with all those choices, but Jimmy makes so many stupid decisions that it's hard to believe bad parenting alone was the problem.

* ShockinglyExpensiveBill: Jimmy gets served one when he's at the restaurant. Luckily for him, Blake agrees to let Jimmy pay him back while he works for him.

** This film was shown to troops during WWII. You think that some of the soldiers who had girlfriends working to make supplies to their lovers overseas would be a little pissed.

* BreakHisHeartToSaveHim: Kitty breaks up with Jimmy to try and protect him from Blake.

* AllMyFault: A scene cut from the MST3k episode has Kitty blaming herself for Jimmy's problems, as she foolishly introduced him to Blake.

* AbusiveParents: Aside from some possible mild neglect, this is surprisingly averted, even if the film seems to think it's playing it straight.

** The dedication at the end says that the movie was made to entertain the YanksWithTanks overseas (it was 1944). Let's see: a film where a kid goes completely off the rails due to his parent's absence is shown to a large group of young fathers, some of whom might never come home. Brilliant!

James "Jimmy" Wilson is an all-American [[strike:25 year old man]] teenage boy living in typical 1940's suburbia. He's a nice kid and even won the big essay contest at school... oh, and his parents like to drink, party, and gamble. This being a pseudo-propaganda film in the 40's, this pretty much ensures Jimmy will fall into a pit of debauchery and crime, and indeed he does; After meeting a pretty lounge singer named Kitty, Jimmy gets hired by her boyfriend, mobster kingpin Charlie Blake. After running a few errands for Blake, stupidly never suspecting that his boss is a criminal (or that he's even Kitty's boyfriend, as Jimmy starts dating her), Jimmy eventually figures out the truth and goes on the run, then later accidentally kills Blake in a scuffle. Jimmy goes to court for manslaughter, but it all works out because the judge lightens Jimmy's sentence after the kid places the blame on his oblivious folks. Yeah, we're not sure how this excuse works, either.

** Its certainly more admirable than shopping and drinking all day, even by today's standards.