Les gamines explosives

I was pleasantly surprised that this movie still holds charm after all these years. I originally saw it when I was much younger, and the only things I remembered were the railroad tracks and the song that is played throughout the film. After watching it with a more mature film-viewing mind, it's still worthwhile. Extremely campy. Clearly dated, but very illuminating. The subject matter is probably more relevant if you have religious leanings, although they aren't required. And oddly, I felt like the song was very Monkees-esquire, but never knew that it had a direct connection. Search it out for a trippy, lovey time in 1968.

I wonder if the dance sequence was an inspiration for Austin Powers?

This was the sequel to "The Trouble with Angels", which was an excellent mid-'60s teen movie. To some, "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows" was a disappointing follow-up. To me, I have always liked both very much, but I always preferred this one a little more out of the two. The reason being, it reflects the late '60s so much, it's so dated and borderline campy. This is what is appealing about the movie. The plotline is basic: a cross country trek to a religious convention, and all of the trials and tribulations the girls go through while they are on route. What 'makes' this movie is Stella Stevens as the hip & groovy liberated Nun that pickets against "the man", stands up to bikers, and later finds out what role she plays is in her students life. If you go in expecting this movie to be like the original, then you are setting yourself up for a big disappointment. If you liked other late '60s movies like "How Sweet It Is", "Impossible Years","Divorce, American Style", "Yours, Mine, and Ours" and "The Love God?", then you will definitely enjoy this late '60s groovy movie.

My family and I always loved this movie. Since I am a Catholic school survivor I can relate to it. I was 7 years old when I first saw it at the drive in (remember drive ins?) and it always brings back good memories.

A clean wholesome movie and funny too! Whatever happened to clean and wholesome movies? Parts of this movie were filmed in Ambler Pennsylvania and the Castle in the movie is still there and it hasn't changed at all.

The plot of the movie was reflective of the times and the times represented change and the acceptance of change. This change was interwoven throughout the movie in the interactions and conflicting views between the modern sister George (Stella Stevens) and the old fashioned and reserved mother superior (Rosalind Russell). The moral of the story is: "A cloister can be a place but it can also be a state of mind."

Boyce and Hart (who wrote many hit songs for the Monkees) supplied the musical score which provided the groovy beat of the movie.

I loved Susan St James in this movie. She was such a bright young actress at the time. I loved the scene where she was caught riding on top of the bus. That scene was shot on a farm near my hometown.

I also appreciated the views of the Philadelphia art museum as well as city hall along with the center of the Ambler Pennsylvania town. Those views have changed over the years.

Those who were sent through the Catholic School system (voluntarily or not)will get a kick out of this movie.

You can buy the movie on Ebay and I think that a DVD version has been released.

This is another of those cases when I have seen the sequel before I saw the original, and from what I have seen this is another in those rare cases in which the sequel is better than the original. This film worked for me on two levels. On one level it was a pretty decent story about Marvel Ann (who was more of a peripheral character in the original) and how she tries to cope with her feelings about being a sort of ugly duckling. This is especially true in her scenes with her more attractive best friend Rosabelle (played by a very young Susan Saint James in her pre-"MacMillan and Wife" days). Also, the other main story that this film covers is the relationship between Reverend Mother (again played by Rosalind Russell) and Sister George (played by Stella Stevens). The relationship between those two is a reflection of what was going on in the Catholic church during the mid to late 1960's as this film came out a few years after Vatican II. Reverend Mother represents the old church and Sister George represents the younger face of Catholicism that is trying to change with the times. This is a wonderful film that really works as both a comedy and a drama.

Why am I reviewing this? It's not typical of what I normally review , although that doesn't mean anything in particular because I don't review 99 percent of the movies that I see. I had never heard of this movie before but I was bored the other day and it happened to show up on cable on a channel with no commercials - and I'll watch just about anything that is sans commercials. Plus I'm a sucker for a road trip flick and I will take any chance that I can get to take a sixties road trip, even if it is with a bunch of nuns on a bus instead of freaks on motorcycles.

First of all, while fairly well made, this is not a great movie. It's mainly the story and plot, or rather the lack of them, that causes the problems here. Technically it looks fine and the shot on location photography is very nice. But the story is so incredibly thin and silly and riddled with the most over-the-top clichés and contrived plot devices that it becomes distracting. The entire film is nothing more than a series of connected scenes of the type that junior high drama students might come up with. The only progression in the film is the physical one of the bus travelling forward in time and space, because otherwise the scenes could be mixed and shuffled like cards and placed in any order and the end result would be about the same. This film has got to be one of the very last examples of well made but quickly written hack jobs written by old school Hollywood hack writers - except for a few of the "modern woman" touches gleaned from the swinging sixties optimism pre-Altamont this film could easily have been made in 1958 instead of 1968.

Just a few examples of the above can be illustrated by the church's school bus. The basic "plot" of this film is that a group of girls from a Catholic school and their Mother Nuns take a road trip to California for a rally. That's pretty much it. They have an old broken down school bus, which in one of a seemingly endless line of contrivances (you'll have to watch to see what this particular contrivance is) gets replaced by a brand new one for the trip. A nice shiny yellow brand new bus with the school's name on it. Early on in the trip, the driving nun stalls the bus on some railroad tracks with a train coming (of course). The brand new bus won't start. They start to evacuate the bus and the door won't open. It's one of those bus doors with the handle that the driver pulls - when have you ever seen one get stuck, especially on a brand new bus? So they go to evacuate out of the back emergency door. That one is stuck too. What the heck is happening with this bus all of the sudden? A brand new, perfectly functioning bus turns into s teenage virgin and nun deathtrap all of the sudden. So the girls start clambering out of the windows - I was only surprised that all of the windows weren't stuck too. Well, of course they all got out and the nun was able to restart the bus just in the nick of time. And the scene just ends with a circle fadeout and that's that. No mention of how they were all able to reboard the bus with the stuck doors and all.

Further on down the line the bus suffers a blowout on on of the brand new tires, runs out of gas (not the bus's fault there, but leads to a great scene with ridiculous biker "toughs" roughing up nuns), gets filled with water and suds in a truck wash, and breaks an axle while evading a charge of Indians on the warpath (yes, you read that right). I think that they would have been better off with the old bus!

I'm sorry though, I must apologize. It's easy to find fault with the writing here, as it is atrocious. But at the end of the day I enjoyed this film. It's a period piece to be sure - in the extreme. Movies like this will NEVER be made again. It echoes a sentiment that was naive even in 1968. It was past its time before it was even made. But it is entertaining, and even if you do pick it apart by the clichés and contrivances, well that can add to the fun. The cinematography is pleasing and the scenery of late 1960's midwest is pleasing too. You are not going to watch this film and then get depressed, and there is something to be said for that.

So go ahead and watch this movie, and take a road trip yourself back to a more innocent age. Relax and enjoy it - there is also much to be said for taking a detour to a couple of hours away from the stressful mood of the planet Earth in the year 2006. And as hackneyed as they can be, I'd still prefer one movie like this to one hundred of the market analyzed, test audienced, product placed and merchandise marketed complete and total cr@p ones that ooze from Hollywood's rear end these days.