The title speaks for itself in last night's "Delinquent Daughters"(1944), an exploitation pic from PRC. Teens are out of control in a California coastal town, and after the suicide of a local high school girl, the cops decide to crack down. "Detective Hanahan" (Joe Devlin), takes a personal interest in the case, as required in this type of "warning" pic against juvenile delinquency. In these movies, there has to be an Adult Who Cares. Hanahan goes to the high school to question the kids about the suicide, focusing on three girls whose answers are sketchy and defiant. The gals are led by "Sally" (Teala Loring, Debra Paget's sister) a beautiful but tough talking brunette. Her followers are "Betty", an airhead blonde, and "June" (June Carlson), a nice girl who likes to hang out but won't participate in the more out-regis behavior encouraged by Sally. June has a Dad who beats her if she's late getting home. Ditzy Betty is in the picture mainly for comic relief and would be good on SNL. She disappears once the going gets rough.
The girls hang out at a beachfront cafe run by 30-ish "Nick Gordon" (John Dawson) and his hot tempered, sarcastic Mexican girlfriend "Mimi" (Fifi D'Orsay). Unbeknownst to June, Sally's boyfriend "Jerry" (Jimmy Zahner) is pulling jobs for Nick, mostly knocking off ice cream shops, small time stuff. He nets all of $2.40 on one. Nick wants Jerry to move on to bigger stuff. Then one night when Jerry and Sally are peeling out after a robbery, they smash into a guy fixing a flat tire and nearly kill him. Nick covers for them and they ditch Jerry's roadster (which can pull 100mph). Another kid, "Rocky" (Johnny Duncan), steals his Dad's gun and pawns it to Nick for three bucks. The gun will loom large later.
Sally is a real strumpet, calling the shots for the boys as well as the girls. Her parents call her a Wild One, but there's a reason. It turns out she was in love once with a sincere boy named Jimmy. She still keeps his picture on her dresser, and one night she breaks down and cries over her life; a crack appearing in her hard shell. "Jimmy, you're the only boy I ever loved." Sally doesn't know what love is anymore, just risk for shock value. Halfway through the 70 minute flick, she and Jerry go on an all-night crime spree, robbing store after store, and when Detective Hanahan catches up with them, they knock him off the pier into the water. Unfortunately, the picture is badly damaged in this sequence, and for about 8 minutes the movie becomes a radio show. Because the crime-spree is at night, the screen is mostly black. No images can be seen and no people. So, from the 36 minute mark to about the 44, you've just gotta wing it. But there's more than enough dialogue to fill in the gap, so hang in there.
The cops finally catch Rocky and some of Sally's hangers-on. Detective Hanahan takes them to the local judge's house for a late night pep talk that later includes their parents. The judge plays the Caring Older Wise Man, wiser than delinquents and parents alike, and he excoriates the latter for letting their children down. We've seen June's Dad beat her. Sally's folks ran her boyfriend away, making her cynical about life, and Rocky's Dad spends his nights at a bar.
These kids listen to the judge, and, in cooperation with their parents, promise to turn their lives around. But Sally is the incorrigible one, and along with Jerry and his 100mph car (which the cops can't keep up with, just like John Dillinger) they team up with cafe owner Nick to pull off a big-time payroll robbery. Nick's girl Mimi finks on them when cornered by Hanahan. She's jealous and feeling double-crossed, because by now, Sally has her eyes on Nick, the kingpin.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "Delinquent Daughters". It's surprisingly good, though the acting is deliberately overstated, as exploitation usually is. As noted, the picture is so-so at best, dark in places, and completely black for those eight minutes in the middle. Therefore, to still give it Two Bigs and a recommendation is high praise. It's really good for what it is. Frank McGlynn Sr., who plays the judge, was born in 1866 (one year after the Civil War ended!), making him one of our top five (probably top three) earliest actors. The earliest was born in 1859. ////
The previous night, we ventured into a different type of crime solving, the use of a clairvoyant, in "The Eyes of Annie Jones"(1964). Francesca Annis stars as Annie, a 17 year old orphan who can "find things". Shortly after the movie opens, the London police are looking into the disappearance of mill owner "Geraldine Wheeler" (Jean Lodge), who was scheduled for a Spain vacation but failed to meet her aunt at the airport.
"Aunt Helen" (Joyce Carey) has a bad feeling, and knows about a girl at a local orphanage who is a psychic. When we meet Annie, she is a malcontent teen, wearing hand-me-down clothes that "smell of carbolic soap". She looks mousy; acts sullen. In her words, she was "born in the gutter", lived on the streets til she was 12, never knew her parents, and her gift "hurts her head".
"But I can find things if I want to," she coyly tells Aunt Helen, who brings her to niece Geraldine's mansion near the mill, to see if Annie can "pick up Geraldine's aura". "David Wheeler" (Richard Conte) comes with them. He's the mill's manager, a married womanizer who grew up in America (explaining Conte's New York accent). When we first see him, he's smooching his 20-year-old secretary. His English wife walks in on them. She's forgiving if not amused, and it's okay, because he's got the hots for her, too. We're supposed to get that he's.....(ahem) virile. It's in Richard Conte's contract.
David Wheeler thinks the whole psychic thing is a load of baloney. At the mansion, he makes one crack after another about Annie. "Is she flying in a trance? Is she somewhere over Bulgaria?" He's a hard headed realist, though Aunt Helen assures him she's seen Annie find things, and David is shown-up and shamefaced when she finds his missing cuff link, using channeled guidance from a spirit helper.
Despite David's dismissiveness, Annie develops a crush on him. It's kind of a red herring, and probably meant to play up the character's manliness (he's now got so many women that he can refuse the too-young Annie, who he thinks is weird). "Oh, I'm just a Liverpool girl from the slums, am I?" she cries, ultimately turning against him.
The cops get a lead when a local taxi driver starts flashing lots of cash in a nearby pub, buying rounds of drinks. Where'd he get all the dough? The only ones in town with money are the Wheelers, who own the mill, and this particular cabbie drives David Wheeler all the time.
Annie goes sleepwalking one night and winds up in the woods behind the Wheeler mansion. After that, David has had enough mumbo-jumbo. "I want her sent back to the orphanage tomorrow!" But doth he protest too much? She's only trying to help find his missing sister. The movie showcases Francesca Annis's talent (and her looks), she's 19 here in real life, and she has to convincingly portray not only her psychic gift, but also her life history as an unwanted slum child. Her performance, along with a tight plot, earns the movie Two Huge Thumbs Up. A good supernatural murder mystery produced at Shepperton Studios by 20th Century Fox. The picture is razor sharp. ////
And that's all for this evening. My blogging music is "Third" by Soft Machine, my late night is Handel's Theodora Opera. I hope the Fourth was With You today and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxo :):)
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