Delinquent Daughters

This is a bad movie that purports to be an educational film designed to warn America about the menace of teenagers running amok thanks to uninvolved parents. However, like almost all the so-called "educational" films of the 30s and 40s, it was really a shabby little film designed to be snuck past the censors of the Hays Office. In 1934, the major studios all agreed to abide by the dictates of a stronger Production Code--eliminating sex, nudity, cursing and "inappropriate" plots in films (these had actually been relatively common in films in the early 30s). However, in an effort to sneak in smut, small studios created films to shock adults when they learn about terrible social ills, though they were REALLY intended to titillate and slip adult themes past the censors! Such films as MARIJUANA, MAD YOUTH, REEFER MADNESS and SEX MADNESS were all schlocky trash that skirted past the boards because they were supposedly educational. Even though they were laughably bad, they also made money due to low production costs and because they often offered nudity, violence and sordid story lines--all in the name of education!

Unlike many of these films, DELINQUENT DAUGHTERS didn't have nudity, but it sure had lots of sleazy story elements that were sure to titillate. In this film, teens drank, used drugs, committed pointless robberies and assaults and drove like maniacs--all apparently the result of poor parental guidance. And as a result, kids died in this movie--and in the most spectacular ways! The acting and writing were almost universally bad, though the sequence where the judge tells off the parents of these punks actually was amazingly good--too bad everything else was pretty lousy. In fact, one character was so bad, so annoying and so gosh-darn awful, I nominate the ditsy blonde as the most annoying character of the 1940s--she was THAT bad!! Her voice was more grating than Olive Oyl's and she was practically sub-human in her stupidity!

1st watched 1/22/2007 - 3 out of 10(Dir-Albert Herman): Mediocre, at best, juvenile teenager drama which starts at the onset of a high school girl killing herself with the authorities trying to find out why. Of course, the kids remaining aren't much help as they were all out partying together the night before and don't want their parents to find out. None of the kids show much sympathy, which appears to be the point of the movie -- if you're a bad girl and party you lose all your sensitivity. Although later in the movie, the tables turn and the parents are shown to blame -- which was a nice turn(with a good scene with the judge helping the parents understand where they were going wrong), but it comes too late in the movie(about ¾ of the way thru). For the most part the acting is pretty bad and the lighting on some scenes is so horrible that you can barely tell what's going on(this may have just been the age of the movie, though). Besides this, the movie tries hard from a story perspective, but turns out to be pretty much a snoozer that you're just waiting on to end.

Delinquent Daughters (1944)

** (out of 4)

PRC cheapie has a cafe owner turning a bunch of local kids into juvenile delinquents. Thankfully there's a caring judge and a loving cop to try and teach the kids to be good and drink soda instead of whiskey. Seeing that this quickie is from PRC should tell you not too take it too seriously. The film, like so many others of its day, is incredibly poorly made, features bad acting and an even worse script but all of this adds to its charm and if you enjoy movies that are so bad they're laughable then this is a film for me. There are countless stupid scenes with all the typical preaching moments where the judge pleads for peace while the teenagers talk about their bad home lives. The highlight of the film is when one of the cops takes two of the bad kids to see the judge in the middle of the morning and we get a ten minute scene with the judge preaching to everyone in the room. An even dumber scene is when one of the girls comes home late and her freak father slaps her and then tries to go after her with a cane. It's silly moments like this that keeps the film moving throughout its 71-minute running time. If you're looking for art then go watch a Bergman film but if you want silly trash then this film delivers.

The newspaper-ads promotional material for this film featured a series of Coming Soon theatre script-written teaser-ads comprised of daily entries in "The Diary of a Delinquent Daughter." June writes:

Wednesday: "Had my first drink of whiskey today. Tastes awful...but what a wallop! Guess I passed out. If Dad knew what I was doing I'd get trounced! Gosh...wonder if he really cares what happens to me?"

Thursday: "Nick wants me to run away with him. Says I'm old enough to know my own mind. I'm sixteen, but I look older when I use makeup...Wish I could confide in Mom or Dad!"

Friday: "Can you keep a secret, diary? I'm going to slip away tonight. Dad will probably be tight as usual and Mom out painting the town (also as usual.) So it shouldn't be too difficult. I'm scared a little bit but I just can't stand things here!"

Saturday: "I'm on my way to the big city with Nick. That's the fellow I met at the dance. I'm in love with him, I guess, but he makes me awfully jealous. Always making passes at some other girl when I'm around. But anything is better than what I left behind."

Sunday: "What a big baby I am...I've been crying. I'm not homesick, just a little bit scared. Nick accused me of flirting and hit me. Just found out he's broke. We've got to get some money some way, and fast!"

The only reason to see the movie after that series of ads ran was to find out if Nick had figured out by Monday a swell way June could make them some money...from real-friendly strangers...fast.

This was on the compilation DVD, Cult Classics. The transfered print was awful. There was a big scratch running through print for about fifteen minutes. About fifteen minutes of the night material was so dark that you might as well be listening to the radio.

What can be seen is quite poorly written. We are talking Ed Wood bad here. A woman pulls a gun on a man. The man says, "What have you got there." She answers, "Something that goes boom, boom, boom!"

Teara Loring is interesting as a real sociopath. She really enjoys lying and stealing. Mary Boward gives a cute performance as a blond airhead, more blond and more airhead than anything in movies until Marilyn Monroe's comic performances.

Fifi D'Orsay is funny as a French woman.

Other than a few interesting performances, the bad dialogue and inane plot make the film difficult to take seriously. It is only redeemable for a few camp moments.