Hey, I actually wrote a review of this film some time ago, so in the interest of green politics and recycling, let me trot it out again right now!Was this bad-girls-in-reform-school flick made in an attempt to cash in on the Academy Award-winning Boys' Town or did the studio just happen to have a few dozen nun's habits in their wardrobe department? Tubby, dewlapped crooner Mel Torme frames busty bottle-blonde bombshell bad-girl Silver Morgan (Mamie Van Doren, the poor man's Jane Mansfield) for the over-a-cliff murder of her attempted rapist in this 1959 teen-sploitation flick. The cops don't have a thing on Silver but the dead punk's dad commands the usual White Male Reality political pull, sending her to the convent/reform-school "Girls' Town," chock-full-o' tough-as-nails nuns, teen gangs played by 35-year old actors, an "Ave Maria"-singing Paul Anka, a no-hands drag race ending in the usual expected laughably "tragic" result, the Platters, badly-choreographed catfights consistently broken up by beefy security nuns, way too much embarrassingly fake teen slang, and Charlie Chaplin, Jr. Watch out for Silver's creepy reform-school pal Serafina, a spooky obsessive fan stalking a vaguely stupefied young Paul Anka; look carefully during the drive-in scene to spot the reflections of the director and camera crew in the windows of the cars. The Sound of Music, this ain't.
Well! That was easy. And fast. Why don't we just fill out the rest of the post with an expanse look at the oversized range of Mamie van Doren's larger-than-life acting skills?
Still, there's Paul Anka in this movie:
And he's singing "Ave Maria"!
Also, Jesus is in it:
...so you can watch this film in Sunday School and it's OK.
Anyway, just remember:
Mamie van Doren!
Mamie van Doren.
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