Three Bad Sisters

We have to remember that the 50's were practically a blank slate when it came to movies. Hollywood was in transition from patriotic war movies, noir, two reel oaters, etc to movies with a message. We had Blackboard Jungle, On the Waterfront and so on. Some folks might think that was an improvement. I don't. Who was the mogul who said: If you want to send a message, call Western Union? He was right. These psychological thrillers are less entertainment than some kind of remote therapy.

This one is a pip. It's about three sisters trying to wrest control of their dead father's estate. One of them, maybe the only one worth redemption enlists the aid of the company pilot to help her keep the rest of the family at bay. He's initially in it for the bucks, but eventually falls for her. Meanwhile the rest of the family schemes to sabotage the romance. The results are predictable. You get a little bit of everything in this movie. Sexual tension between the sisters. A little subtle masochism. Hereditary insanity - if there is such a thing. We never get to meet the parents, but they must really have been screwed up The cast is practically unknown. One or two of the actors sound vaguely familiar. The acting is so bad it's hard to believe. It was released under the United Artists umbrella by a company called Bel-Air Productions. It was shot in and around LA mostly at night and probably without permits. The end was so bizarre that I thought it was a joke. It was as if they ran out of money and the producer decided to wrap it up in the middle of a scene.

I can't explain it - not even to myself - but I gave this pile of trash an 8/10. I'm familiar with the term "It's so bad it's good", but I don't think I ever ran into the phenomenon before. Well, maybe "Hot Rods to Hell", but this one certainly fits. You might want to try this if you love movies that seem like they were made in somebody's basement.

The title tells a lie: It's actually two bad sisters. The middle sibling Lorna (played by Sara Shane) proves as virtuous as she is dull, compared to the psychotic (Valerie, played by Kathleen Hughes) and the nymphomaniac (Vicki, played by Marla English) with whom she shares a mansion and their dead father's millions. (Also in the mix is a boozed-up busybody of an aunt played by Madge Kennedy.)

The trouble, which has been brewing for three lifetimes, boils over when dad dies in a plane crash. The pilot (John Bromfield) claims to have tried to save him, but doubts abound. Valerie, sniffing an opportunity, schemes to have him brought into the family business and marry him off to Lorna, engaged to the estate's executor (Jess Barker). She hadn't reckoned on Vicki, who throws herself at Bromfield as though lust had just been put on the market in easy-to-swallow caplets (`I graduated magna cum laude from Embraceable U,' she coos at him).

Valerie and Vicki make Goneril and Regan look like Little Sisters of the Poor. They openly and viciously taunt one another, and Lorna, about age, and looks, and anything else their stoat-like minds can come up with. In one eyes-like-saucers scene, the twisted sisters get into a cat-fight concluding with Valerie's taking a riding crop to Vicki's face, driving her (quite literally) around the bend. All the while she's photographed in pitiless close-up, her thickly-lipsticked maw stretched wide in ecstatic triumph. But wait! There's more....

Suds'd-up trash so pungent it's hard to pass it by, Three Bad Sisters was a late-50s Z-movie template for the motivelessly malignant soaps and serials that soon became a staple of television screens, filling the days of our lives. Script, acting and production boast no redeeming qualities whatsoever, except excess and sheer effrontery. In regard to those qualities, Three Bad Sisters offers an embarrassment of riches.

That hilarious line is typical of what these naughty sisters say. (It's funny on its own terms and pretty funny unintentionally , too.) Only two of the sisters are really bad. Boy, are they bad, too! One is given to pinup poses and salacious comments where e'er she goes. The other is got up to look like Marilyn Monroe. She has those sensual, slightly parted lips. And, not to give anything away, she is even more bad than the other.

All three sisters are played by starlets. The man who stumbles into their lives is played by John Bromfield. He had something of a career.

This looks today like possibly the first mainstream soft-core porn ever marketed. Well, of course not the first but the raciest at that time.

The girls wear as little as possible and let's not forget about the female audience members: Bromfield is shown shaving with an electric razor -- whose fetish was this? -- bare-chested. He also is shown sopping wet in a swimsuit.

There's a real plot here, too: The girls' family, see, is cursed. They are prone to suicide -- or dramatic deaths that can be made to seem like suicide.

The movie is not bad. I truly don't know where it was shown. Maybe it was made for drive-ins. Somehow, and I could be wrong, I felt that the typical male audience was not the primary target here. The women are scantily dressed. They often resemble lurid covers of mags like Police Detective or jackets of dime novels.

But the guy seems to be the central focus. Not everyone in the movie likes him, but all the girls love him. And I think the audience is meant to also.

It's lots of fun -- and on its own terms, too.

Directed by Gilbert Kay with a script co-written by Gerald Drayson Adams and Devery Freeman, the best thing about Three Bad Sisters is the three young beauties who are the title characters. Of course, as other reviewers have pointed out, there is a bit of a problem with the title since the three Craig sisters include two who are wicked and one who is virtuous. Blonde bombshell Valerie (Kathleen Hughes) and sultry brunette Vicky (Marla English) are in a competition for nastiest sister title; blonde beauty Lorna (Sara Shane) is sensitive, somewhat timid, but always well-meaning. The chief male love interest is hunky pilot Jim Norton (John Bromfield). As others have also pointed out, it is possible to count nasty sisters to three if we take the sister of the late father, Aunt Martha (Madge Kennedy), into the mix.

The film begins with the off camera plane crash death of the millionaire father of the main three. He was the sole passenger of pilot Jim Norton who survived. Was the pilot negligent? Did he even actually murder dear old dad? Will the three daughters share and share alike? Not likely. The movie poster shows the back of a woman's legs, the seams going up her stockings, and the legend: "What They Did To Men Was Nothing Compared To What They Did To Each Other!" The script has a super boo-boo at one point. Bad sister Valerie actually says to good sister Lorna, "It takes a woman to hold a man like Jim, not a psychopath!" Huh? What? Didn't Adams and Freeman know what a psychopath is?

Dialogue makes more sense when an exasperated Jim exclaims, "I'm getting tired of being blamed for what goes on in this nuthouse!" As readers have probably guessed, Three Bad Sisters has no artistic pretensions, no moral pretensions, and no social or political "message." It is fast-paced, titillating, trashy fun. Plane crashes, car chases, intense confrontations, dirty dealings among the fabulously wealthy, flirting and cheating, all make for a flavorsome popcorn box of a movie. It is especially good at underlining the sensual charms of its female protagonists as when Vicky raises her shapely high-heeled legs up from her position on a couch.

Kathleen Hughes enjoyed a rich and varied career that lasted most of her life. Perhaps her most well-remembered achievement was a photograph of her in an attitude of terror, hands thrown up, eyes super wide, mouth open as if in a scream. The famous picture is often used for comedic purposes and is iconic of a "scream queen." Both Sara Shane and Marla English left acting for other careers.

Sara Shane had a busy acting career in the 1950s and early 1960s before retiring from acting in 1964. She went into business. In 2018, she directed a health center in Australia where she resided. She also published books, including a book entitled Take Control of Your Health and Escape the Sickness Industry. She returned to the cameras (in front of them and behind them) in 2008 when she wrote, produced, and co-presented the documentary One Answer to Cancer.

Marla English started acting after winning a "Fairest of the Fair" beauty pageant while still in her teens. She bore a striking resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor and was known as a scream queen. However, she left acting when she was only 21 years old to marry a wealthy business executive and become a housewife. She took care of his daughter from a pervious marriage and bore four sons.

Although Three Bad Sisters did not call for great acting, it got adequate performances from all its major actors and can be counted a colorful feather in their caps, regardless of how long or short their acting careers were.

This is a very low budget soapy thriller--and it makes no attempt to be anything other than entertaining. It ain't the least bit sophisticated and is a bit silly--but it IS enjoyable on a low-brow level. Just sit back and watch the fireworks. I guarantee you won't be bored!

"Three Bad Sisters" begins with a plane crash. A rich guy is killed--leaving his vast fortune to three really screwed up but beautiful daughters (sort of like really bad versions of Hilton girls). One daughter, Valerie (Kathleen Hughes), is greedy and wants to force the pilot of the plane, Jim, to work with her to somehow cheat her sisters out of the money--but how is never really stated. The guy (John Bromfield) seems to have no choice and comes to stay with the family on a trumped up pretense. He soon learns that one of the sisters, Lorna (Sara Shane), is emotionally unstable and seems to be struggling with suicidal impulses--and she's by far the best of the bunch! Vicki (Marla Craig) is a combination nympho and home-wrecker. And, Valerie is just evil. What's Jim to do? And what exactly is Valerie's plan? Tune in to this VERY juicy film to find out more.

Subtle it's not nor is it especially believable. But, it also it great fun and the actors do pretty well with what they've been given. Sure, a few characters are a bit broadly written but it never bores...never. It's sort of like a poor man's "Peyton Place"...on crack! I'd not say it's a great film but it's a wonderful guilty pleasure--the sort of overwrought trash that can be very difficult NOT to watch.