When the Girls Take Over

I'd put this in the same bag as Roger Corman's "Creature From The Haunted Sea," a low-budget, quickie, unfunny comedy taking off on the then fairly recent takeover of Fidel Castro in Cuba. One thing though. Corman's film, as bad as it is, is a freaking masterpiece compared to this fail fest loaded with phony accents (at least we get both bad Spanish and French accents...and the Fidel Castro doppelganger sounds like he's channeling Bela Lugosi half the time), bad costumes and worse fake beards. Corman's film was written and shot in about three days with leftover money from another movie (and seems like it)...and it's not quite as bad as this one. (Gee, Jackie Coogan can add this to his pile of roles in horrible movies like Mesa of Lost Women.)

I agree that the title is totally pointless. There are a few pretty girls on board, but they are clearly there only for eye appeal and quite tangential to the silly plot, what there is of it.

If you must complete your collection of unfunny broad comedies based on Fidel Castro, then by all means, check this out. Otherwise, you can stay the blank away.

Saw it online, and it is most likely public domain, so it should be available for free if you are a masochist.

Inspired by Fidel Castro's success in Cuba, similarly-bearded Robert Lowery (as El Maximo Toro) pretends to kidnap his own busty blonde lover, as she is also the daughter of French "Millionaire" Prime Minister Marvin Miller (as Henri Degiere). Mr. Lowery hopes to become dictator of "Hondo-Rica", a sugar-producing Republic somewhere east of Cuba. Mr. Miller is assisted by comic concierge Jackie Coogan (as El Captaine Toussaint), and Lowery by sidekick speech-writer Gabriel Dell (as Bill Henderson). A few neighborly Americans, including "Dixie" soundtrack-swelling Jimmy Ellison (as Axel "Longhorn" Gates), decide to become involved. Bad decision.

** When the Girls Take Over (5/62) Russell Hayden ~ Robert Lowery, Marvin Miller, Jackie Coogan, James Ellison

Discussing the plot of this indecipherable mishmash of bad acting, phony accents and glued on facial hair would be completely pointless. Filmed shortly after Fidel Castro had risen to power, somebody must have thought that having a cigar smoking guy in a beard and flat-topped hat, barking out orders in a Colonel Klinkish manner, would be funny enough in itself to sustain an entire hour's worth of entertainment. Needless to say, it isn't.

Although this film is listed as being in color, the public domain version I checked out at the library was in black & white. This probably diminished the one thing it had going for it...some nice scenery.

Finally, I should mention that the title has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the plot. No "Girls" are "Taking Over" anything. I guess the only way they could think of to promote this pile of crap was to emphasize the fact that it does include a few pretty señoritas in bare midriffs.

This film has been called satire. It is also supposed to be a comedy. The former claim has more plausibility than the latter. Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, and Cuba has never looked forward since. Here he is portrayed as a bumbling, cranky military leader who is fond of shooting people on the slightest pretext. The plot of the film is not convoluted exactly but requires a bit of thought. Generally, comedy does not, aside from cultural references and the like.

The big question though is when exactly did the girls take over? Holding him down while they shave off his beard hardly qualifies as a counter-revolutionary act. The best thing about this film is that it is mercifully short. In spite of the presence of a number of scantily dressed females, there is nothing really sexual about it, much less pornographic, as you would indeed expect from a film released in 1962.

"When the Girls Take Over" was not the first American B movie to be inspired by Fidel Castro's revolution, but it has to be the first one - maybe the ONLY one - to make it a comedy. That's certainly a new angle, but the end results suggest why it wasn't done again, that being that the movie is extremely unfunny. That alone is enough to kill the movie, but the movie manages to make things even worse. The script is a mess. The story is often confusing, and feels like they are making things up as they go along, such as the fact that important characters are off screen for extremely long periods of time. Add some slipshod production values (such as the prominent shadow of the cameraman at one moment), you end up with one real mess of a movie. Is there anything of merit to be found here? Well, the location shooting on the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico does occasionally give a visually interesting backdrop. Though since all current prints of this shot in color movie are in black and white, viewers won't be able to get the full impact of the visuals.