Problem Girls

As the tagline for the film say, "Nothing can tame them, scandal can't shame them!". This and the scandalous posted currently linked to this IMDb page pretty much say it all for this movie...or is there more? Could this film, marketed as an exploitation flick, actually be any good?!

Dr. John Page has just been hired out of graduate school...and on the surface his job would seem like a great one. After all, he's been hired to work at an exclusive girls school. However, this is not your typical, ordinary girls school. Despite their coming from rich families, many of the residents seem more like head cases-- schizophrenics, nymphomaniacs, pyros and the like--all young ladies their rich families would rather just forget! But it is much worse...one of the girls is part of a very strange and elaborate plot. But any time the doctor tries to do his job and behave like a professional, the headmistress seems to get in the way--like there's something she's hiding. But what?!

This is in some ways an exploitation film--with the ladies undergoing torture and mistreatment by employees of the 'school' that seem more like matrons from the prison film "Caged"! But the plot is much more complex and interesting...making it a truly unusual film. While the plot has a few minor problems, the overall film is surprisingly good despite all the icky aspects of the picture.

Happened to catch this one on TCM today, and it's truly bad. So bad that it's kinda fun to watch. Hardly a moment goes by that the viewer's willing suspension of disbelief doesn't work at all. Picture an alleged schoolfor wayward girls of extremely rich families in the City of Angels. Imagine a faculty made up of castoffs and ne'er-do-wells desperate for work and willing to therefore place themselves under the thumb of an evil couple with a plot to steal the fortune of a billionaire oil man. Now imagine clumsy dialogue, wooden acting, melodramatics galore, and a few catfights between women in their 20s attempting to pass as teenagers. Loads of fun! Catch it if you can.

Just a sharp, compact little B-picture partly written by Jack (Indestructible Man) Pollexfen. Unlike a lot of the "girls dormitory" pictures of the 40s and 50s-- largely a boring lot, save for GIRLS TOWN-- this one is lively and in some cases, very funny. Check out actor Anthony Jochim as a weird old doctor at the girls school, who despite having murdered his wife in days of yore proves to be of invaluable help to the sterling young hero investigating corruption at the school. The Mephisto Waltz sequence is a howl! Also lots of familiar faces from the B's: Beverly Garland, Mara Corday, Joyce Jameson... if TCM shows it again check it out!

Looks like Columbia Pictures was reaching for an exploitation version of Caged (1950), replete with troubled patients, a reformer, and sadistic matrons. What Columbia got instead was a bumbling exploitation flick, replete with chorus-girl patients, wooden dialog, and over-the-top complications. Oh yes, for us guys, it seems all the girls, weird or not, are unusually fetching, straight from Hollywood and Vine.

Plot-wise it seems that straight-arrow Dr. Page (Elliott) takes a job at a girls reform institution, but soon finds the place is more like a Nazi prison camp, run by scheming witch Dixon (Walker). Despite believability, I guess the girls' wealthy parents don't care. Then too, the faculty features such professional types as an elderly professor who gleefully chopped up his wife with a meat cleaver, while discipline takes the form of hanging the girls by wrists under a stream of running water. The sheer steadfastness of the movie makers' approach comes close to camp, but somehow I couldn't even chuckle.

Too bad the tragic Helen Walker had to settle for this mess. She was so good at scheming, e.g. Nightmare Alley (1947). On the downgrade, she still shows her stuff in a thankless role. Meanwhile, that familiar utility actor, Ross Elliott, gets a colorless lead role, but still does his best. Also, can't help noticing that the queen of scream, Beverly Garland (Nancy) gets to unload a real lung blaster. And catch that abrupt ending, like they suddenly ran out of film. Anyway, the screenplay's a mess so unless you're a Helen Walker fan like me, skip it.

Problem Girls is a really bad film. Shot on a dental floss type budget with pedestrian direction it has one saving grace. The incredibly florid and campy performance of Helen Walker as the hard bitten, hardhearted mistress of a school for Problem Girls.

Walker whose best career years were behind her knew this was a turkey and she gobbled through her role like Thanksgiving was coming up. Nurse Ratched had nothing on this woman who runs a school like a prison with generous doses of sadism and a corrupt staff of whom she has something on each one.

But our story here concerns Walker planning something truly sinister for amnesia patient Susan Morrow and in the process getting her hands on a fortune.

To find out what you watch the film for. But fans of bad Ed Wood or Arch Hall films will love Walker in the lead. Even us more discerning fans will appreciate what she does to save a turkey.