DIARY OF A HIGH SCHOOL BRIDE (1959) - you should probably at least flunk out of college before you tie the knot

The opening text claims that the movie is the “story of a teenage girl who could be your daughter, your sister…or you!”. I reckon that if you qualify for all three…wait for it…wait for it…you might be a redneck. Either that, or you are very confused, maybe suffering from multiple personality disorder. In that case, I recommend heavy medication.

Well, Judy is a young girl. We know this because she clutches a teddy bear wherever she goes. She just got married to a lawyer in his mid 20’s (Steve), and they get pulled over for speeding. The cop asks Judy how old she is, and she freaks and starts crying as if she was being interrogated at gunpoint. Judy pulls out an LP recording of their wedding ceremony as proof of their marriage, and the cop quickly leaves her alone. Steve calms her down by calling her “delicious”. God damn the fifties were awesome. Further proving my point, we then hear the solid doo wop theme sung by one “Tony Casanova”. Tony, you fucking rock.

Well, the couple visits Judy’s parents to talk about the weather and maybe mention that they happened to get married. Needless to say, the parents are royally pissed, as marrying a 17-year-old girl is just not what proper people do. Mother wants to call the police to have the marriage broken up, but father wisely points out that this is no solution. Thinking about it, I guess I understand why Judy was nervous, being that she didn’t have her parents consent to get married, and a 25-year-old marrying a 17-year-old could be construed as statutory rape. Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. As Winger famously implied, seventeen is close enough. Then again, maybe my brain has been rotted by modern immorality.

The couple heads to a truly awesome bohemian café, where the waitress wears a skimpy leotard and goateed hepcats call each other “daddy-o”. There’s also a white dude playing flamenco guitar, but the music doesn’t match his fretwork. Maybe they got a proper latino to actually record the music, and he’s just a white friendly guitar front. Either way, the cats in the crowd are totally digging it. That is, all except a greaseball ruffian who also happens to be Judy’s ex-boyfriend. He is none too thrilled to see that Judy has married some “square”. The greaseball has a goofball greaser friend (he is a ball of grease that is goofy, if you follow) that is always listening to his walkman. Keep in mind that this is 1959. It would be like having your own little spaceship now. It might be just a little radio with no cassette deck capabilities, but it’s still impressive. Either way, the hair gelled ghosts of Judy’s past are coming back to haunt her.

I guess Judy is a virgin (she sure acts like one), so Steve does what any man worth his salt would do and makes his move. He pulls back his robe to show off his chest hair, and also hits a button to unfurl the magic foldout futon. Boy, this movie sure is technologically ahead of its time. Steve finally smooches frigid Judy and, of course, she drops her stuffed animal. I guess this is a classy, symbolic way of saying that she finally got schtupped. Of course, she has to awkwardly head back to high school, and the other girls immediately tease her with a rendition of “Here Comes the Bride”. Even way before Twitter, word sure got around fast.

I thought this underage marriage thing was more acceptable back then. After all, Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year-old cousin, which was a big scandal at the time, but now if you did that, you would get thrown in jail for the rest of your life. You know, if she really did look like a young Winona Ryder, it’s hard to blame him. Perhaps I shouldn’t just come out and say that. Either way, maybe the law has gotten tougher while people have gotten less easily offended.

More to the point, Judy seems like the most honest, moral soul imaginable, so it seems ridiculous that she lives in a world that repeatedly chastises her for her morality. I guess the lesson here is that parents are jerks that occasionally love you, and high school students are complete and utter assholes at all times. They’ll make fun of anyone just to feel better about themselves. I’m pretty sure that if you were a 16-year-old high school student that took a day off to accept the Nobel prize for chemistry, you would get taunted unmercilessly the next day at school.

The movie unfortunately doesn’t concentrate on the more sociological aspects of Judy’s plight, and instead becomes a story about the ex-boyfriend greaser stalking Judy and Steve, trying to break them up to “get his kicks” (including the requisite drag racing/chicken scene). It’s more Cape Fear than Rebel Without a Cause, admittedly. I don’t think you really need a monster when the quiet tragedies of a judgemental world can be quite monstrous to an innocent young girl just looking for love.

Those are some foggy streets.

GOOD-TIME GIRL (1948) - if this is a good time, maybe we should aim for the suck

Gwen is one of those "troubled" British teens who has trouble foist upon her, at least after an initial “crime”. She merely borrows a brooch from work and returns it, but is caught by her sleazy boss. Gwen won’t allow herself to be molested, so of course he fires her. Gwen's father finds out she was fired and, instead of molesting her, he just beats the shit out of her, and things go downhill from there. I know some parents insist that beating up their kids “instills discipline”, but I can’t help but think it mostly ruins lives. Then again, I don’t have any kids, so maybe I’m just an armchair quarterback when it comes to the subject of smacking around an innocent child.

Skipping ahead, Gwen ends up in a reform school, which is really just a prison for hot young chicks (in the movies anyway). She is scrubbed clean and maybe searched vaginally, in case she’s trying to smuggle in a nail file between her legs. Not to sound like a pervert, but I wonder if one of these reform school scrubber squads is hiring. I’d like to think I’m thorough. You know, who am I kidding…that is grade A pervert talk right there. Anyway, she’s handed her brand new uniform by the de facto female warden (whatever her title is), custom fitted as it is for bad girls that can’t fit into “normal” society. Gwen throws the clothes down, screaming “I WOULDN’T BE SEEN DEAD IN THEM!”. Yeah, stick it to the man.

Of course, Gwen immediately gets into a catfight with the resident tough girl, who uses the excuse that they were “just doing some exercises” when they get caught in the act. Maybe that sounds like a lame excuse, but you can certainly get a good workout while catfighting, what with the rolling around and the wild grabbing of hair, which can certainly help tone the old pectorals. Gwen then calls the “warden” a “silly old faggot”. This proved quite startling to me, as I had no idea you could call an old lady a faggot. Who says cinema lacks the power to educate?

Well, the women in prison mini-movie quickly comes to an end when Gwen escapes, trying to find the real thief and clear her name (much like The Fugitive, I guess). She does so in very wily feminine terms, going undercover in a sense as a mistress, leading to yet more plot twists that I sure as balls didn’t see coming.

relevant footage begins at 2:00

The movie is a near brilliant example of a film using exploitation material of the time to make some interesting sociological points. The 1st half of the film is a portrait of an innocent girl that is told she is bad by society, despite not doing anything particularly wrong. By the second half of the film, Gwen becomes so embittered by what went on in the first half that she actually becomes the bad girl that society has her pegged as. She is soon forced to become callous as well, even compromises her morals along the way. Her “badness” clearly becomes a byproduct of circumstance, society and family, yet those around her assume she is bad because that is her “essence”. This social conscience is further driven home by the framing device, where a juvenile court counselor tells Gwen’s story to a young troubled girl (a very young Diana Dors). The message is clear; hey young people, take some fucking notes. Life isn’t fair, and it helps to know the ways one can be cheated. That way, you can spot trouble ahead of time, before life fucks you in the ass. But hey, that’s just my interpretation.

P.S. This movie is on Netflix instant watch, and someone also put it on Youtube (the first part is up top).

P.P.S. Victoria Vetri has nothing to do with this movie, but the song on the video is "Good Time Girl" by Nancy Sinatra. Clever, I know.

SORORITY GIRL (1957) - a portrait of a sociopath

For a film from 1957 about a “bad girl” (Sabra) manipulating others for her own selfish gain, you might expect a “bad seed”-esque portrait of an evil monster. However, what we have here is a tragedy borne out of what Sabra thinks it means to be human, like a robot feebly attempting to blend in with the human race. Director Roger Corman, utilizing the bluntness of characterization and plot machinations of exploitation films of the time, manages to craft a fairly realistic portrait of a sociopath, even by modern Hollywood standards.



The key to the movie is to simply look at the interactions between Sabra and her mother. Sabra insults her mother by saying she doesn’t care (honestly, as many may deem it), so her mother rips up a check written out to Sabra in retaliation. Mother tells her “you were a brat the day you were born”, and Sabra responds by suggesting that this particular character trait may have been inherited. Dearest mother retorts with “the only thing you’ve inherited is money”, meant to suggest that Sabra is riding the proverbial gravy train, and any personal problems are self created, surely absolving mother of any responsibility in the matter. Quite ironically, she accidentally defines their relationship with that very statement, that money is the extent of her parenting and, therefore, the totality of their relationship.



This mother/daughter dynamic defines Sabra’s relationships. Once Sabra is granted power over a pledge named Ellie, similarly to how her mother held sway over her, she resorts to employing this diseased dynamic. For Sabra, a relationship is essentially an extortion between two people, an attempt to gain from the other, just as she would attempt to pry money out of mother’s cold hands. Sabra attempts to advise Ellie along the way, cruelly insulting her under the guise of “tough love”, just as mother would snarkily point out Sabra’s flaws.


Sabra’s roommate finds out about her forcing Ellie to do things under the banner of “sorority initiation”, making her do situps and wash her stockings, amusingly quaint given the modern hazing that goes on. She threatens to reveal this to the dean, but Sabra blackmails her into keeping quiet. Relationships for Sabra are, after all, not about love, nor sharing, nor compromise, but rather, a means to an end. In this case…self-preservation.


Sabra appears to be conscious of this “diseased dynamic”, as I put it. She intermittently reflects on her situation in a rather realistic way (instead of simply supplying the audience with plot information), wondering why she doesn’t have any friends, despite being pretty and having money and driving a fancy car. In her world, these kind of things determine a person’s worth. At times her voice over reflects her lack of empathy with others, like when she thinks about stealing away Rita’s (Ellie’s roommate) boyfriend Norm, played by Corman regular and regular studmuffin Dick Miller. Sabra does so seemingly not out of maliciousness, but in complete ignorance of Rita’s feelings, viewing Norm as simply an object to be acquired.




Still, other times, Sabra recognizes that there is something wrong with her. Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar, where you’ve realized you have a problem, but continually try to push it into the background or justify It to yourself. Self-psychoanalyzation is a desperate hole, where a naïve soul can bury themselves in logic and reason. Ironically, Sabra goes to her mother for help, as she has no one else to talk to. She pleads to her in a desperate cry for help, and all her mother can say is “there’s nothing wrong with you…there shouldn’t be, you’ve had the best money can buy”. Mother, sadly but predictably, assumes it’s all a ploy to extort money.



This story takes a turn for the tragic when our flawed heroine attempts to redeem herself. She finds out that Rita is pregnant, with only her and Ellie knowing the truth. Sabra vows to help Rita, and hopefully right the previous wrongs against her, and, indeed, all of the wrongs she hath previously wrought. Sadly, her flawed concept of relationships dooms this attempt. I won’t reveal what happens, except to say that this is not a tragedy akin to Hamlet or MacBeth, but rather, a sad character descent fitting of a 19 or 20 year old of the time period. Sabra is left alone on the beach, crying, with all of her peers staring at her in disgust. The human race, in microcosm, has decided that they want no part of her.




P.S. This was written as part of the Roger Corman blogathon over at Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear. Check it out here.

P.P.S. The stills are artwork from the opening credits, and shows that, despite the exploitative title and poster, the movie is aiming for psychological weight.

THE SHAME OF PATTY SMITH (1962) - a ballad of abortion and death, in that order

Have you ever had the Patti Smith/Patty Smyth confusion conversation? You know, your buddy asks you what you've been listening to lately, and you mention you've been digging on some Smyth:

"Oh yeah!", he says. "She's great. Horses. Rock and Roll N-word. Great stuff."

"Nigger. The word is nigger."

"Yeah, I know. Ya hafta say it out loud? In public?"

"Yeah...but...that's not the name of the song."

"So? Who gives a shit? Well, anyway, I picked up the new Toto disc..."

"No, you got it all wrong."

"What? Got what wrong?"

"It's not her. It's Patty Smyth."

"Yeah, I know. That's what I said...Horses. Also, it's pronounced 'Smith', you asshole. Who the fuck mispronounces 'Smith'?!?"

"We are no longer friends."

While I could pontificate at length about Patti Smith, I think the other Patty is in more need of attention at this point in her "career". As it happens, Patty Smyth recorded two albums with her band Scandal (self titled and The Warrior) before running off for a solo career. It's pretty fucking unfortunate really. Scandal could have been the biggest and best band of the late 80's, but some retard manager had to go and tell Patty that "the band was holding her down". She recorded a solid first solo album (including a Tom Waits cover, no less), but the writing was on the wall with her self titled second album, which included a duet with Don Henley (Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough).

It was a chart topper, yes, but karmically spelled her doom. After all, just like The Dude, god himself hates the fucking Eagles, and a duet with Don Henley is most certainly a one way ticket to musical purgatory.

***

Maybe the purest example of the "abort-sploitation" genre is The Shame of Patty Smith, a little known entry from 1962 (perhaps only surpassed by 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days). The true center and heart of the film is Dani Lynn as Patty, in a completely believable and heartbreaking performance. She conveys every sliver of inner torture along this horrific journey. Here is yet another Patty Smith, who is even more deserving of attention than the other two (and unconditional love, for that matter). She's a lovely young girl, a true innocent, who only wishes to feel the beat of another's heart. She goes on a date with a boy and, lo and behold, they run afoul of some greaser gang, through no fault of their own. Instead of beating up the boyfriend that somehow offended them, they decide that the best way to extract revenge from being slightly annoyed with this guy is to gang rape his new girlfriend. Talk about the lowest of the fucking low. Her heart will forever have a wall around it, it would seem.

Of course, she gets pregnant, but at least she can go get an abortion. Oh wait...abortion is illegal. I guess Patty's hands are tied and her prospects grim. Where are Roe and Wade when you need them?

Patty does manage to find a real doctor willing to perform the abortion, but he's gonna charge extra. She doesn't have the money, but hopefully she can work overtime and...oh wait, she gets fired from her job. What in the fuck. So, she has to scrounge and beg for cash, even going to the local church and asking for a loan.

Of course, the priest wants to know why she needs the money, and Patty hems and haws, clutching her crucifix, nearly in tears. He finally gets the truth out of her, and gives her a big speech of how abortion is murder, even if you're a rape victim. Instead of sympathy and understanding, she gets tough love via the big honcho in the sky.

So, she has to go the underground abortion route through a shady series of encounters, and the shame steadily continues to mount. To circumvent some retarded law, Patty has to travel from middle man to middle man to finally get to an abortion doctor, a recently unemployed pharmacist. She goes through with it, but falls gravely ill. While the law goes into action, Patty's one true friend Mary, the one person who has supported her throughout this ordeal, visits her bedside as she struggles to hang on.

Mary has a warm talk with her, and Patty ends the conversation with "everything's gonna be all right". By the cruelest irony imaginable, she almost immediately passes away. Thanks to a savage gang of monsters and a society that passes cruel laws based on superstition, Patty Smith, a young girl hoping for love and a better future ahead, lies cold and stiff in a hospital bed. Goodnight and goodbye, my dear.

UNWED MOTHER (1958) - an unheralded abort-sploitation winner starring the dude that was in Pootie Tang

that tagline is a fancy way of saying "this shit is REAL"

The wild youth of today are gonna get their kicks one deviant way or the other (circa 1950’s). You know, smoking in the boys room, sneaking whisky out of their parent’s liquor cabinet, drag racing over cliffs, and, yes, knocking over trash cans to spite authority figures (although really only annoying garbage men in the process). Betty is an exception to the rule, a quiet country girl who “gets her kicks reading Schopenhauer and Spinoza”. As it happens, I spend my Saturday nights much the same way, if you throw some booze and failure into the equation. Well, she’s an honest, lonely soul who’s just looking for love, instead finding scumbag lothario Robert Vaughn, who is only interested in exploiting her for sex and money. He’s the kind of slime that puts on any mask necessary to get what he wants. Luckily for his hidden agendas, honest souls make easy marks.

Robert uses Betty as an object to masturbate with, causes her to get fired from her new job, coaxes her out of her paycheck, and even convinces her to become an accomplice as he robs a movie theater ticket booth. What a piece of shit. The normally well behaved Betty manages to get off on probation, but only under the condition that she stops seeing Vaughn. While he has nearly ruined her life, at least this affords her the opportunity to finally break free from his spell and start anew. Unfortunately, in a cruel twist of fate, she finds out she’s pregnant with his child, and they are now forced to marry. Ain't old timey morals some bullshit.

Thankfully, Betty is clever and well-read, and comes up with a super brilliant plan…ABORTION FOR THE WIN! Yeah, babies are adorable, and fun to show off to strangers at the mall, but she needs to get out of this horrible relationship, and you gotta do what you gotta do. Being that abortion is illegal, she is forced to search out one of those underground clinics, where a sweaty and twitchy Timothy Carey (the king of the sweaty twitch) is the “doctor” ready to flush out her fetus. This situation makes Betty uncomfortable, as you might imagine, so she flees the clinic in a panic. She no doubt lacked confidence in Mr. Carey’s ability to administer medicine, probably picturing that his “procedure” consisted of force feeding her a bottle a scotch before whipping out a wire hanger. She probably also realized that fetuses have feelings too. However, cold psychopath Robert Vaughn is the father, so maybe she shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

She flees to a house for wayward girls, where the plan is for her to hand the baby over to an adopting couple as soon as it plops out of her vagina. However, she decides at the last minute that she wants to keep the baby, telling the couple her sob story. They let her keep the baby, as rugrats are pretty much interchangeable anyway, and they can just hit up the classifieds and get another one for a reasonable price. It’s all part of a happy ending, I guess, but some may wonder how a young girl with a rap sheet and no job is gonna raise a child, or raise herself, for that matter.

However, the cheerful optimist in me (he is huddled in the fetal position near my spleen) might point out that she was seeking love all along, and may have finally found it in this little tyke. Here is a miniature goofball that doesn’t coldly judge her like her parents, trying to mold her into an automaton that fits their vision of what a daughter is supposed to be. More importantly, the baby isn’t gonna fuck her over physically, emotionally, and financially, like a Robert Vaughn will. Here is someone that will finally love her unconditionally and occasionally drool onto the carpet.

Granted, this baby will eventually grow up to despise her, but at least she has about a 14 year window of mostly warm fuzzies and the occasional temper tantrum. When her baby finally grows up and calls her a cunt, she can whip out the story of how she was about to have an abortion but chickened out at the last second, and only because she didn’t trust the illegal doctor (that’s a bit of revisionist history, but hey). Consider yourself lucky you even exist.

While abortion is consistently one of those “raging firestorm” topics, I don’t quite see what the big deal is. Grown people are killed every day and hardly an eyebrow is raised. I guess the main question in play is “what legally constitutes a ‘life?’”. This is quite a conundrum, and I think I may have a brilliant/ridiculous solution. I say the law should prosecute murder cases on a weighted basis, quite literally, and not on a binary life/not life basis. In other words, eliminating a fetus gets you a slap on the wrist because it’s only a couple of ounces. However, if you kill a 900 pound slob by feeding him knowingly tainted pork rinds, you should get 46 consecutive life sentences. Makes sense to me.