Sixteen

Poor Mercedes McCambridge. She must have been starving to make this movie. I see some reviewers have "trashy"appearing to be one of a criticism that makes a movie bad for them. Trash is not necessarily bad. Terrible writing, acting, and directing make a movie bad. All three are here. I was watching as I was doing other stuff so I'm sure if I had sat down to watch a movie I would have left it. (Watched on Prime.) if ever a movie deserved a 1, this is it. If my momma was in it I would give the same rating.

This was part of a strange cycle of early 70's movies focusing on rural Southern hillbillies--"hicks-ploitation" flicks you might call them. Some of the bigger-budgeted ones, like "Walking Tall", were serious and more or less realistic, while others, like some of the films of Roger Corman or Russ Meyers were more exploitative and melodramatic , while others still, like "Country Cuzzins" were flat-out Harry Novakesque softcore porn "comedies". It's hard to say where this oddity fits in. It has kind of a Southern Gothic feel to it like a William Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor morality tale about a family of poor hillbillies who come into money and are approached by every local con artist from used car salesmen to drunken preachers, but eventually end up at a fair (Vanity Fair, perhaps?) where they are preyed on by carnival folk in a long surreal, largely dialgue-free sequence that were so popular in the era (i.e. "Runaway, Runaway" or "The Pick-Up").

There are certainly some exploitative scenes. There's a really strange scene early on, for instance, where the older brother and sister run off hand-in-hand and go skinny-dipping in a particularly filthy-looking pond while hippy-dippy early seventies music plays. I think this is supposed to show the innocence of the characters. But while the actors are not voluptuous "Lil Abner"-esquire caricatures typically found in these kinds of movies, they don't really look "sixteen" either, let alone as young and impossibly naive as they act. It is mostly this pair that is preyed at the carnival--and mostly sexually of course--but (for better or worse) this movie really fails up to live up to its lurid alternate title "The Young Prey".

At times the movie seems to be trying to be a comedy such as when the mother tells a town magistrate that she named her oldest son J.C., not after Jesus Christ, but because there was a sale at J.C. Penney's the week he was born. The comedy falls flat though usually and the movie falls back on it's generic early 70's weirdness. (Of course, I LIKE early 70's weirdness, but others may prefer a movie with more broad comedy and hillbilly sex). The only recognizable star is Mercedes McCambridge, who appeared in several European Jess Franco films AND provided Linda Blair's demonic voice in "The Exorcist". The older daughter is played by a pretty enough actress (even if she won't make anyone forget about "Daisy Mae Clampet" or "Daisy Duke" ). The youngest son called "Brother" looks vaguely familiar and I think was an early 70's TV actor. But I've said enough. Check this out if it sounds interesting to you.

If you see on the trivia section how much this exploitation borrows from the classic semi-musical STATE FAIR, that's because I wrote that, and this...

In the 1945 classic, a hick family goes to a fair where the virginal teenage sister falls for an exciting and confident older fella, while big brother falls for a pretty woman who works as an entertainer there... at the fair...

Trade in a singer for a stripper, and a newspaperman for a motorcycle daredevil and here it is: What's basically a remake, and all the exploitation relies on the gorgeous titular SIXTEEN year old sister played by Simone Griffeth, an extremely gorgeous girl... as was Jeanne Crain, by the way...

Not bad for what anyone would consider bad with the low budget and all... Has the pace of a drive-in flick, and some nudity and sex to wake up the audience, as intended, who went for just that...

The setup has the family getting a nice payday, and the townspeople trying their best to separate them from it...

SIXTEEN did have more tiers than just the teenage blonde, but wound up with pretty much her and her only. After all, it's HER movie. Although there is more action with the stripper, trying to pry into the family money while, also like STATE FAIR, has a jealous boyfriend. Seriously, this IS a remake, no matter what it says, or doesn't say.

Meagerly funded and pretty trashy tale involving a dirt-poor backwoods couple coming unanticipatedly into a substantial amount of cash. They subsequently take their three kids to the state fair, where the two elder children(a boy and girl in their teens with an implied incestuous relationship)are corrupted by some shifty carnival folks. The girl is coerced into sex with a daredevil motorcycle rider(in front of an audience), and the boy becomes prey to a busty gold-digging stage dancer.

A sub-par and highly forgettable film which might be just quirky enough to interest a few fans of regional 70s exploitation cinema. Brief nudity and soft sex scenes may be missing from some prints.

Mercedes McCambridge, appearing rather uneasy here, gets a nomination for the "any old thing for a paycheck" Carradine Award. I imagine she was hard-up for fifty bucks when she signed on for this one. 4/10.

Sixteen is the kind of film I used to see when I did Army Reserve training in such places as Fort Polk, Fort Stewart and Fort Knox. I guarantee that this filom did nit have a New York showing.

Meet the Irtleys a most rural Georgia family with parents Ford Rainey and Mercedes McCambridge as parents with kids John Lozier, Simone Griffeth and Buddy Foster as the kids. One fine day the family takes a trip to Valdosta to see a carnival playing there. They return minus Lozier and Griffeth both of whom have had some bitter romance happen to them.

As you can see this is based on State Fair. But all three versions of that classic were better than this film. How such veterans as Rainey, McCambridge, and Parley Baer playing a fake preacher and Maidie Norman as a neighbor got roped into this is beyond me. I can't believe that it was for a trip to rural Georgia.

For some titillation there is a nude swimming scene with Lozier and Griffeth. Hard to believe then they'replaying brother and sister. The Code was gone by then.

As for the romance t worked out better for the kids in all 3 State Fair films.