Clawsome takes a look at some vintage teen girl delinquent flicks, drinking in the cheesy, so-bad-it’s-great goodness
It seems that DV1 distribution is having a bash at releasing every genre of film with “ploitation” after it. Blaxploitation and now late 50’s, early 60s Chicksploitation. Or films about “bad girls”, “troubled teens” and “Young delinquents”! The shock, the horror, the cheese – it’s all here. Let’s run down the impressive list of B-grade classics:
Girls in Prison (1956): they had us at “prison”. Annie Carson, a 21-year-old strumpet decides to play a part in a bank heist. This proves to be unwise as she gets caught and ends up in… wait for it: prison, where even her good looks and sass can’t help her. The tagline has to be considered an all time classic: What Happens to Girls Without Men? – well bank heists, obviously!
Rating: Three Claw Strokes
Female Jungle (1955): “As the night grows dark, the women turn deadly!” So proclaims the tagline. So, what, they’re a bit like Gremlins? You can’t feed them after midnight and they explode in the sun? Well it would have made a more interesting movie than this. Despite the delightful Jayne Mansfield, this murder mystery is nowhere near as much fun as some of the others on offer. Plus Female Jungle conjures up images of sweaty, scantily clad amazons. Don’t be fooled! This sounds like something you’d watch without pants – but it’s tofu-dull.
Rating: One measly Claw Stroke
Dragstrip Girl (1957): Louise, at 18, is into fast cars, fast men and um… fast cars. Again. This rather by the numbers affair does have a few things going for it – a) It runs at a slender 69 minutes so even if you think it’s a pile of crap, it’s not a pile you’ll be watching for long, b) There’re a lot of unintentional laughs and c) Cars go fast. Other than that Dragstrip Girl never really gets out of first gear. Oh what? Like you wouldn’t have made a car pun!
Rating: Two Claw Strokes
Sorority Girl (1957): Contrary to popular belief, making a good cheesy B-grade film takes a lot of work. And when you look back at the exploitation films you enjoyed, it’s usually because there is some talent on offer, whether it be with the actors or the script or whatever. In this case we have the maestro of the B-grade film director Roger Corman at the helm and it shows. A rich bitch pisses her friends off so they ostracise her. She gets revenge and, well, the results are suitably goofy yet compelling. Once again Corman shows how it’s done, usually on a budget comprising ten bucks and a bunch of grapes.
Rating: Four Bleedy Claw Strokes
Runaway Daughters (1957): Bad girls, who just want to be loved by their parents, bugger off in the hopes of a better life. Naturally these hopes are dashed against the spiky rocks of reality. This is an odd one. Entertaining, sure, but it seems even more of an obvious morality tale than most of these flavour of film. Most curious is the tagline: They called her “JAILBAIT!” ‘They’ who? Did it happen when I went to have a piss? Was there a prequel? Bah!
Rating: Two Claw Strokes
Reform School Girl (1957): A teen girl, Donna Price, falls in with a wrong crowd and is present when scumbag Vince kills an innocent bystander in a hit and run. Vince tells Donna he’ll kill her if she gives him up so – out of desperation – she takes the wrap and ends up in a reform school. Things go from bad to worse there until Donna eventually charms most of the inmates. But Vince is on the outside, getting paranoid, getting angry, ready to silence Donna for good. That plot… it’s pretty cool. And the movie’s actually okay. Not to be confused with Reform School Girls the 1986 chicks-in-prison flick – which has one of the best ’shower scene in women’s prison’
Rating: Three Claw Strokes
While a lot of these flicks are far from classic they did set the scene for 70’s women-in-prison movies like Jack Hill’s The Big Doll House (1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972). Seek these out, and if you’ve got any other chicksploitation favourites why not let us know and, fuck, I don’t know, we’ll buy you a pony. Possibly.
No, really – what have you got?
