gizmomogwai Proving Ed Wood can write just as well as he can direct, his script The Violent Years is brought to life by another director, and the result is still not good. The Violent Years comes out of an age-old theme that people mistakenly think is recent- "Today's kids are out of control and it wasn't like that when I was that age!" Except, people have been saying that forever. Check the date of the film- 1956, remembered now as a golden, Leave It to Beaver age. Like the later A Clockwork Orange, this has a gang of four teens robbing and raping- intriguingly, these four are all girls, which makes it harder to sympathize for the man who is raped- this is more male fantasy than horror.The film starts with the girl's parents up in front of a judge, who speaks about how hard it is to try a good friend. This is indeed hard, because judges can't do it at all- they have to recuse themselves. And since when can bad parenting be punished by the law? Much of what follows is ham-handed exploration of the kind of parenting that breeds delinquency- a mom who says her daughter's issues can't be all that important. And, skipping your kid's birthdays causes crime. The girls attempting to be bad leads to leaden dialogue and acting and cheesy lines. One woman needs to be told by the man that the girls are pointing guns at them, at which point the girls compliment him for being observant. The worst the woman who gives the gang its jobs can call the girls is "jerks." Of course, it all ends with more "If only I had..." mourning from the parents, reflecting a morality play with all the subtlety of being hit over the head with a hammer.

mark.waltz The wretched acting gets a longtime companion with Edward D. Wood Jr.'s writing the moment that mom goes to write a check, simply tapping the check with her pen and hands it to her daughter. The young girl has made an effort to converse with her very busy mother who is too busy with charities to spend time with her. How about dad? He is working too many hours at his newspaper. So what is a girl to do when moms and pops are too unavailable? Rob gas stations, that's what. Yes, there is a history of rich kids turning to crime. I know... I had it happen to me twice, and I could tell that these delinquents were at least upper middle class. What causes kids with money to do such things? Drugs perhaps, maybe just the thrill of seeing if they can get away with it.Now if this D grade drama made any effort to explain why, perhaps it would rank a 4 instead of a 2. These buxom females are obviously older than the supposed 18 years. With angora sweaters covering their bullets over Broadway, they are one dimensional and unbelievable. At times, there is some little bit of intelligence, but I believe that was strictly by accident. A prologue concerning the parents in court is a finger-wagging moment that is up there with the rock musical where a long-haired old fuddy duddy smashes a record and shouts "Rock and roll has got to go!"I had seen the opening footage of the four nasty females approaching a blackboard and sneering at its attempts to show them values. None are present here. The same year's "The Bad Seed" gave logical reasoning to why sweet little Rhoda was a sociopath, but this shows none. They are animals, pure and simple, and not the kind that one would use the word to describe them... outside of a kennel.I waited ten minutes before deciding what fate I wanted for each of them. These girls would be approximately my mother's age now, and I have seen her high school yearbooks. Not one is her supposedly tough school looked like these bullies with breasts. Even John Waters created a more realistic tale with his expose "Female Trouble" where Divine at least had the motive of not getting cha cha heels for her life of crime.Today's teens can be just as bad with their selfish motives hidden by passive aggressive behavior. So if Wood was looking into the future, he got everything right but technology. "What did you expect them to throw back, powder puffs?", one of them asks when the police open fire on them. They mourn the sudden death of one of the quartet for a minute. An older woman whom they hide out with is their fairy godmother from hell. Watch for the obvious wretchedness in the amateurish acting and the ridiculously badly clichéd script. It's the only way to make it through this without gagging on your finger.

mtckoch The Violent Years, one of my favorite Ed Wood films, takes on the toughest problem of the fifties: violent girl gangs! The gang, led by pretty Paula Prentiss, vandalizes, robs, assaults, and kills to get what they want. The dialogue is clunky, the plot ludicrous, the acting wooden, but it is hilarious. What deep, dark trauma caused Paula to take up a life of crime? Her parents don't spend time with her, buy her everything she wants, and write her blanks checks. Her life is truly a "living hell". All this leads Paula to become a vandalizing thief, a sexual predator, and a cold-blooded double killer. Go figure. What is this feminine fiend's explanation of her crimes? Not "They were scum and they deserved what they got.", not "I did it, and I'd do again", but the callous-yet-laughable "So what?". If you want a dark comedy with awkward characters, mixed messages, and a coma-inducing summary, watch this movie.

Lechuguilla In what is yet another bad juvenile delinquent movie from the moralistic 1950s, four "teenage" girls rob a gas station, erase a classroom chalkboard, and do other vile things. The four females are all miscast. They're too old to be teenagers. The main "girl", Paula, is 18 years old. But the role is given to an "actress" who looks more like she's in her thirties.The film's sets are cheap looking. Dialogue is horrible. There's no subtext at all. Characters say exactly what they're thinking, which renders a production reminiscent of a high school play. Overall acting is amateurish. None of these people have any talent. They mouth the words without conviction or credibility. B&W lighting is conventional but tolerable.With speech after speech about right and wrong, the worst element of the film is the ending, as a judge hits us over the head with a moralistic sledgehammer. He starts out by blasting a teenager: "...this thrill seeking became the one great thing in your life, piling one thrill on another until, with ever increasing intensity, you became much like the drug addict, with his continual increases of dosage ..." As the actor playing the judge continually looks down at a paper, which is probably the film's script, he slogs on: "... to kill for the love of killing, to kill for a thrill". The judge's sermon to the teenager goes on for several more minutes.But the judge isn't through yet. Later, he gives another sermon, this time to the parents: "No child is inherently bad. He's made what he is by his upbringing and his surrounding. Adults create the world children live in". (I didn't know that! hehehehe) "And in this process, parents play the key role. When children grow up among adults who refuse to recognize anything that is fine and good or worthy of respect, it's no wonder that ..." Yawn! The film "credits" show that the infamous Ed Wood, Jr. was the scriptwriter. No wonder the script is horrible.There are unintentionally funnier films out there than "The Violent Years". But the film still provides a good lesson for young filmmakers about what to do, and especially what not to do, when making a cheap movie.