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After two films with Errol Flynn, the acting producing husband and wife team of Anna Neagle and Herbert Wilcox decided to try a film with a more modern theme. Not that musical comedy star Neagle was about to rock and roll, but she could play the mother of a daughter who was into that crazy new beat.

Teenage Bad Girl starts with Anna's daughter Sylvia Syms being a good girl. Syms is the oldest of two daughters to Neagle and she's pretty happy especially since she has a new man in her life, Norman Wooland. But Syms has met up with a new boy, a bad boy played by Kenneth Haigh who intrigues and excites her.

Pretty soon she's spending all her time with him to the exclusion of family, school, other friends and Syms has Neagle properly worried. It all ends in a senseless tragedy.

Teenage Bad Girl was no better or worse than some of the teen themed dramas that were starting to flood the market as the age of rock and roll dawned on this side of the pond. I'm sure it made some good money for the Wilcox/Neagle team although it certainly wasn't a typical Anna Neagle product. She and Wilcox would be leaving the big screen shortly and concentrating on British television.

I am appalled at the sensationalist title of ' Teenage Bad Girl ' and its original British title is so much better. In fact the film is much better than I expected watching it by chance on a television channel. The cast is excellent, and Anna Neagle gives a very good performance indeed worrying about her daughter who has quite simply met and fallen for a wayward young man who is psychologically disturbed. Sylvia Sims and Kenneth Haigh ( the original Jimmy Porter in John Osborne's ' Look Back in Anger ' and should have been chosen for the film role in Tony Richardson's version of the groundbreaking play ) play the lovers and because of a fatal turning of events land in a terrible situation. No spoilers but the frightening scene of this situation reminded me of Pushkin's ' The Queen of Spades. ' And as a the film's soundtrack uses Tchaikovsky's music ( not too well, but not too bad either ) I thought of the Opera of the composer based on the Pushkin story. As for the film as film I am not an admirer of Herbert Wilcox but this was much better than the rest of his work. It gives a portrait of 1950's life and it rings true, except for a few critical scenes towards the end when it becomes preachy. It is much better than most films of the time that dealt with teenagers in trouble and out of their depth in coming to terms with adult judgements and demands. Watch it if you can. It is not the trash that publicity showed it to be and has a cast at its best who give their best. Highly recommended.

One of a whole slew of movies made as the '50's kicked off for the second half, to cash in on/play catch-up with the rapidly emerging youth culture. By the time 'My Teenage Daughter' hit the big screen in the summer of 1956, no self respecting Ted was blathering on about 'jive'. The tidal wave of rock 'n' roll which had swept across the United States, initially with Bill Haley and the Comets, but more importantly, Elvis, was now taking Britain by storm.

Hanging around fashionable bars, Kenneth Haigh tries to act the hipster, but looks like he's in the middle of a dry run for 'Man at the Top'. Introducing respectable teenager Sylvia Syms to his world of black coffee, cigarettes, fast cars and late night parties, she seamlessly transforms from intellectual prude to intellectual rude girl, by-passing the optional acne along the way.

Syms' journalist mother (Anna Neagle) is the perfect candidate for a key role in the launch of a new magazine, aimed at 14 -18 year old readers. The brainchild of super cool, visionary editor, ....Wilfrid Hyde-White.....who no doubt endured numerous sleepless nights and endless days of brainstorming before deciding to call his new creation....'Teenage'.... WOW!

Neagle's affinity with the younger generation receives a severe jolt, several evenings later, when Syms sends shock waves of such magnitude through the family home that structural damage to the building was inevitable, by announcing her intention to attend a party, at.... HALF PAST NINE!

Haigh and Syms soon catch the attention of the boys in blue, hitting the front page of the evening paper, along with the shock of England losing three quick wickets, following a rain delay. Is Syms discovering to her cost, that despite Haigh's swanky car and hip friends, there's a lot less to him than meets the eye?

One dimensional doesn't even come close to capturing the contrived portrayal of Syms' delinquency by numbers fall from grace. Whilst the recurrent trendy song, 'Get With it' by The Ken -Tones owes more to The Andrews Sisters than rock 'n' roll.

Memorable, largely as Sylvia Syms ' screen debut and for offering a youthful fling to Julia Lockwood, Wanda Ventham and Arthur Mullard, seen briefly as a bouncer, all familiar faces on British T. V. from the 1960's and beyond.

Talking Pictures ironically advises parental guidance for this museum piece, in which bobbysoxer Sylvia Syms gets plenty from concerned parent Anna Neagle.

Directed by a 65 year-old veteran of silent films, as the daughter who learns the hard way that Angry Young Men (even those in tweeds and a cravat) mean trouble Sylvia Syms was supposedly seventeen but actually 21 when she made this (and is now 86)! And the sum of money that causes all the grief is just £40.

Another twenty years still lay ahead before one of the other teenagers - Wanda Ventham - would give birth to Benedict Cumberbatch. I could go on, but I think you get the picture...

This is one of the worst movies I've seen, and that's saying a lot. Ruminations on "Rebel Without a Cause", but they could have called this movie "Film without a Director." It was so completely boring that it was almost unbelievable. They used the same annoying song five times (at least) in the movie. "Get with it!" says the song. Indeed. Do not not not get with this movie. ever.