Customer Reviews

Girls Town [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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 manipulative, cloying 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 a convent-slash-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 Seraphina, a spooky obsessive fan stalking a vaguely stupefied young Paul Anka; look carefully in 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. If you're like me, you saw this given the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" treatment, and were all the better for it...it's even funnier that way, and at least *intentionally* funny.

I actually saw this movie for the first time a couple of weeks ago on American Movie Classics. I know it's a B movie, but I really liked it. I thought the acting was surprisingly "tight". I was also surprised to see Mel Torme acting in a film, as I had never seen this before. As with most films portraying teenagers, real teenagers are seldom used, so I can't really bash it for that. I liked the music as well, especially the opening song and Anka's touching rendition of Ave Maria. This is the kind of movie I would have enjoyed watching at a Saturday afternoon matinee.

It's always amazed me how director Charles F. Haas managed to orchestrate the outstanding cast that he had for _Girls Town_. The amount of talent assembled for this low-budget classic is virtually unprecedented: Mamie Van Doren, Mel Torme, Ray Anthony (Mamie's real life husband during filming), Paul Anka, Gloria Talbott, Elinor Donahue, Gigi Perreau and The Platters.

Mamie Van Doren's portrayal of trash-talking Silver Morgan is a "crazy, cool, fantabulous" camp classic. Van Doren's voluptuous figure is enhanced with push-up bras and padded panty girdles before it is poured into a series of revealing outfits. There's no doubt about it -- this girl puts out! Gloria Talbot and Peggy Moffitt exchange coy glances as Paul Anka sings "When Somebody Loves You", while the _Girls Town_ girls dance with each other at a party. The subplot of Gigi Perreau's stalking of Paul Anka is resolved when he promises to get her a record player for her room and have his studio send her "some new LPs and some swingin' platters." The next scene is probably the best one in the movie as Anka sings "Ave Maria" so beautifully that Van Doren breaks down in tears. Other reviewers here have pretty well covered the remaining memorable scenes.

Even though _Girls Town_ is great movie, it is only available on DVD as a bootleg. (My DVD looks almost as good as the SP tape from which it was probably made.) _Girls Town_ appears to be an MGM production, but the VHS tapes say Republic Pictures. Unfortunately, the tape is out of print and we must deal with a variety of sellers, rather than traditional stores. Republic Pictures produced two North American VHS versions of _Girls Town_ (1959) with Mamie Van Doren. The initial VHS release of _Girls Town_ (Stock #1529) was duplicated in the traditional Standard Play, 2-hour SP mode. Later, Republic Pictures released _Girls Town_ with the same stock number, but this time the tape was duplicated in the Extended Play, 6-hour EP mode.

The quality of the SP tapes is very good, even though the original source material had a somewhat raspy voice quality. But, the tapes duplicated in the QEP mode are of poor quality, with a very distracting absence of picture detail, and most of them exhibit severe audio and video tracking problems. The words, "Duplicated in QEP Mode" should appear on the back of the box, in the lower-left corner of the low-quality, EP mode tapes. I have no idea what the "Q" in QEP stands for, but it definitely doesn't stand for "Quality." A QEP tape is better than no tape at all, but not by much. Obviously, the tape duplicated in the SP mode is the one to buy -- especially at the prices some sellers are trying to get.

So far, I have never seen a QEP disclaimer appear in any eBay or Amazon Marketplace listing. Even if they respond, asking sellers about the QEP disclaimer can sometimes be frustrating, because often the tape is a former rental and the QEP information was cut off when the box was hacked up to fit into a rental case. However, there is one sure way that a seller can tell the two versions apart: When rewound, the SP tape has 7/8 of an inch of tape on the spool and the QEP tape has only 3/8 of an inch of tape. Factory-sealed copies can present a problem, because there is a slim chance that a QEP box may contain an SP tape or that a non-QEP box may contain a QEP tape. At least one factory-sealed Canadian _Girls Town_ tape I know of had a sticker placed over the QEP disclaimer (the QEP warning was not completely covered) before it was shrink-wrapped at the factory. Whether the tape was duplicated in SP or QEP is anyone's guess.

Bottom line: Try to get a _Girls Town_ tape that was recorded in the SP mode.

Classic howler from the drive-in era of movie making, what was then referred to as a rock n roll movie. Starring B-movie bad girl Mamie Van Doren, pushing 30 at least, playing an underage teen, who is sent to reform school run by Catholic nuns. Elinor Donohue (Princess from tv's Father Knows Best) plays Mamie's look alike kid sister (I swear). Mel Torme, the Velvet Fog himself, plays a sneering leatherjacketed j.d. (even tho he's at least 40 when he made this) who blackmails then kidnaps Donohue, with plans of shipping herdown to Mexico. Anyway, there's drag racing, an attempted rape, a murder, cat fights, tough lesbos,rock n roll songs, mental breakdowns, religious conversions and Paul Anka (with his old nose) singing "Lonely Boy" (which he wrote for this film) and the "Ave Maria" (talk about sacriligious!). Also on hand is I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE's Gloria Talbot ( as a lesbo), Gigi Perreau (as the unhinged girl who stalks Anka, before there even was stalking. I guess the producers couldn't afford to have her stalk Ricky Nelson.) And check out the appearence by The Platters, in which the camera never shows the face of lead singer Tony Williams, just his hand, the back of his head, and the column that covers his face! Forget HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, this is the CITIZEN KANE of camp classics. Crazy, cool and completely unforgettable.From M-G-M , of all places..

Matter of a fact, that's where I saw this. Even without the robots commenting on the bottom, it's a hoot and a half - just think - 5'-?" Mel Torme as a heavy?!? The "girls" he's roughing up are usually 2-3" taller than he is, even without the heels and outweigh him by 20-30 pounds. If you're in the mood for a howler - rent it!

This film has been shown on local television, cable special or late night flicks and still manages to inspire films today.
I saw this movie 5 years ago and managed to let friends and family borrow my vhs copy. The movie is one of a kind with its rock 'n' roll greats on stage such as The Platters, Paul Anka , Mel Torme and the cameo appearance with Ray Anthony . Mamie Van Doren bursts onto the screen as the ultimate bombshell and the Mae West- like candor starring as Silver Morgan . Silver is part of a gang of reckless youths that unfortunately are looked upon as hopeless rebels. An accidental death takes place with a member of the gang and Silver Morgan is blamed instantly because of a lipstick found in the dead teenager's car. Denying that she was ever around the night of this date-gone-wrong and is sent to an all female youth detention center run by Nuns. Silver makes her way into the place and decides to cat fight with anyone that gives her bad time....in the end, she comes out of the whole thing a changed girl that has been mistakenly charged with the crime. I truly loved this film and Mamie Van Doren shatters the Marilyn Monroe comparison showing her comedic talents.

This is a very good movie. In fact, it is extremely well done all around. The acting was very effective and convincing. I particularly liked the cinematography. Also, the script worked on many levels making it appealing to a wide audience. I found this film to be both entertaining and thought provoking.

sending this in again as i forgot 2 put the name of movie......great movie 4 back in the old days

i liked the movie, it was good, 4 back in old day'