The Violent Years (1956) User Reviews (52)

Ed Wood sure can write 'em, can't he?

[gizmomogwai · 3/10 · 11 October 2015]

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.

1950's delinquent scare film

[rosscinema · 5/10 · 8 June 2005]

You might think that this is going to be one of those films that's "so bad it's good" because Ed Wood is involved but the truth of the matter is that while it's undeniably silly it's still nowhere as bad as other efforts by Wood. Story is about a seemingly "good girl" named Paula Parkins (Jean Moorhead) who has nice parents and does well at school but the truth of the matter is that she's involved in an all girl teen gang that robs gas stations and assaults innocent couples necking at lovers lane.

*****SPOILER ALERT***** Paula along with Georgia (Theresa Hancock), Geraldine (Joanne Cangi), and Phyllis (Gloria Farr) commit these crimes and sell their loot to an older dame named Sheila (Lee Constant) who has connections(!) but the truth is that Paula enjoys her bad behavior for the thrill of it. They assault a man and his girlfriend and they end up dragging him into the woods where Paula rapes him! A few days later while ransacking the high school the cops show up and during a shootout both Phyllis and Geraldine are killed. Paula and Georgia are the only two left and they end up killing Sheila but they also crash their car into a plate glass window which kills Georgia. During the trial Paula learns that she's pregnant and her parents want to adopt her child but Judge Clara (I. Stanford Jolley) decides that they have proved themselves to be bad parents and the child will become a ward of the state.

This small "B" film was directed by William Morgan who was a very good film editor (Song of the South, Tarantula) but as a director he had modest success and I guess the best thing you can say about his talent in this field is that he was capable. Ed Wood wrote the script and while this may be thought of as one of his better efforts there are still enough funny lines to keep your expectations up like the detective who barks out "They're not kids, they're morons" but the most monotonous speech comes at the end of the film with the judge. After denying the parents wishes to adopt their granddaughter Judge Clara starts getting a glazed look in his eyes and starts this long and meandering speech about moral obligation and mutters things about families getting back to respecting the 10 commandments and taking care of matters by using the good old woodshed. I'm guessing that Wood was just trying to add padding to an already very short film! A couple of things also stand out for me like the Madonna torpedo bra's that are worn and the fact that Phyllis gets shot by a shotgun but acts like she was hit by an arrow instead! How about the guy who gets raped by Paula? What was he screaming for? Maybe he had never gotten to home plate with a girl before but I came away thinking that Paula must have been very horny! Because Wood's name is in the credits most will automatically think that this is one of Ed's bad films but the truth is that Morgan's direction is adequate and Wood's script has a good edge to it considering it was made in 1956. Sure it's laughably outdated but for me that's part of it's charm and appeal and those who are interested in scare films involving juvenile delinquency this effort probably deserves a peek.

Proof You Don't Have To Be Ed Wood To Direct Badly

[HalRagland · 5/10 · 4 November 2007]

I was concerned when I saw that "The Violent Years" was only written by Ed Wood, but was directed by William Morgan. I was concerned that it might come off as something other than an Ed Wood movie. Yet if you had to guess who directed this one without know anything about the movie, then I'm sure most b-movie lovers would guess it was Ed Wood.

"The Violent Years" has everything you could want out of an Ed Wood directed and written movie. Bad dialogue, bad editing and ham acting plague "The Violent Years" as much as any other Ed Wood production.

"The Violent Years" follows the exploits of a gang of four school girls led by the daughter of the local newspaper publisher. The "girls" all look like actresses who are closer to 30 than 20, but nobody should care since this is an Ed Wood written production. The girls get their thrills by staging armed robberies of gas stations and unarmed lover's lane couples. Along the way we get to see hilariously bad shoot out and crash scenes, an even more hilarious scene where the girls "rape" a man they discover making out with his girlfriend at the local lover's lane, and arguably the most hilarious monologue by a judge in film history.

The aspect of an Ed Wood written film that provides me with the most amusement is the dialogue. Like the above mentioned monologue by the judge. No judge would write a decision in a court case like the one we hear in "The Violent Years", except if he were at least as drunk as Ed Wood was when he wrote it. People just don't talk like they do in an Ed Wood movie, and this has provided many an Ed Wood movie viewer with many laughs over the years.

"The Violent Years" is there for the Ed Wood fan. It doesn't have much to offer to people who like to see good film making when they see a movie. However, if you're looking for an exercise in film making ineptitude for laughs, then "The Violent Years" is your movie.

Subtle....like a 2x4 upside your head!!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 12 November 2009]

Please note: My score of 2 does NOT mean that this film isn't fun. In fact, THE VIOLENT YEARS is a wonderful film to watch. Just don't assume this makes it a good film or a picture made by competent film makers! No, its watchability is because it is so bad...so incredibly lacking in any subtlety that make it a must-see for bad movie fans. In other words, if you like laughing at films such as PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, then this film is definitely for you! The film begins with a judge lecturing two parents and basically saying that any time a teen goes bad it is because the parents are to blame! While this is true in some cases, the film pounds home this contention with all the subtlety and grace of a 2x4 being smacked repeatedly against your head!! As the judge is talking, the mother begins to think back about recent events and wonder if she DID have anything to do with her daughter becoming a menace to society.

This daughter turns out to be like a Jekyll and Hyde sort of person--acting sweet in front of Mom and being an evil thrill-seeking idiot outside the home. For kicks, she and her three friends rob gas stations, destroy schools and rape men. Oddly, however, they are not caught for the longest time because you can only assume everyone in the town (especially the cops) are idiots! The girls leave lots of fingerprints and other evidence behind but the cops conclude at one point that it's the work of a gang of men from another town!! While the girls DID disguise themselves for one of the robberies, it's pretty obvious they weren't guys!!! And, when they raped a man and left him and his girlfriend as witnesses, don't you think they could have identified the girls?! And, later in the film, when one of the father's co-workers comes to the house and one of the girls' boyfriends pulls a knife and threatens the visitor, don't you think perhaps this MIGHT have clued somebody in to the fact that the girl and her friends were up to no good?! Regardless, the bad acting and silly script is very watchable in a salacious and laughable sort of way--particularly if you enjoy laughing at such films as REEFER MADNESS, SEX MADNESS or HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL. Plus, it is just funny seeing the actors(?) having trouble with their lines (such as the judge who appears to be reading his lines as he talks to the parents) and the inconsistent and brainless writing (for which Ed Wood was responsible). I particularly loved it when two of the bad girls just told a crook that they shot a cop---and then this crook picks up the phone and tries to call the police! Didn't they just say they killed a policeman?! Didn't you think perhaps they might do the same if you made this phone call?! Duh.

Overall, because the film is so earnestly stupid, it holds a near and dear place in the heart of every bad film fan--you know, the sort of people who enjoy laughing at horrible films as an exercise in self-torture. If you aren't the sort of person who likes to do this, then my advice is to steer clear!!

Ed Wood, you've done it again!

[Sterno-2 · 4/10 · 11 November 1999]

Ed Wood, purveyor of class and dignity with a veneer of exploitation, gives us a great story about the consequences of parental neglect, albeit wrapped in nice, tight sweaters.

The movie deals with a newspaperman's daughter (who looks about the same age as her parents) who has become a wild child because her father is too busy at work to notice that he keeps giving her the same birthday present every year. In addition, her mom's continuously on the charity circuit, so she's never around for those heart-to-heart talks that young women need. So, left to her own devices, she has a gang of other females in need of thrills who rob gas stations and rape young men.

While this tragedy is at times overly done, the point is still well made that parents need to be involved in their children's lives. Sterno says give The Violent Years some time from your life.

Silly, funny and very very BAD!

[preppy-3 · 3/10 · 22 July 2002]

Incredibly dumb and utterly predictable story of a rich teen girl who, not given love by her parents, starts a girl gang. They rob gas stations, rape guys (!!!) and kill a policeman.

All the "teenagers" in this film are easily in their late 20s/early 30s, the acting is all horrible and the script has every cliche imaginable with hilarious dialogue--it comes as no surprise that it was written by the immortal Ed Wood Jr.!

Worth seeing for laughs. Best lines--"They're shooting back!" and "It ain't supposed to be like this."

Unique

[Quetzl · 12 August 1999]

This film is pretty steady and mediocre (you can tell Ed didn't direct it), lacking the weirdness and spastic nature of Wood's other films. But, it also happens to be the only film you'll ever see where a MAN IS RAPED BY A GANG OF GIRLS! A truly unique moment in film history.

The Yearling

[spelvini · 5/10 · 17 March 2014]

This clear "message" movie begins with a hep jazzy score and a blackboard with inspiring socially-concerned words written across it as lead actress Jean Moorland and other women enter and make dismissive gestures as to the value of the epithets.

When the film shifts to a court room with character actor as Judge handing down a lesson sentence to the parents we know we're in that fuzzy land of Ed Wood whose flat-footed aesthetic has now become legend and imitated for its value in what it can say about its subject as well as what it says about the source of the story it tells.

Rich kid Paula Parkins (Jean Moorhead) and her gang of tough high school women friends spend their days and nights committing crimes, and getting away with it because she uses her parents car and fences stolen goods though and underground source. When not stealing they terrorize the citizenry with extremes like raping young men, and indulge in heavy petting parties at their parents house. When a local closet communist hires the girls to vandalize a high school police are tipped off and guns are fired. Paula finds herself in jail, pregnant from a one-night stand and her parents are left with the blame.

The film was a modest money maker on the B circuit and one can only owe this to the titillating title and all-women cast involved in dastardly deeds against society. This may have been the closest Ed Wood came to monetary success, having written the script for the film.

Many of the subversive ideas and themes can be ascertained in how the lead women refer to each other with men's names, making their rape of a young man all the more subversive. Writer Ed Wood was no dummy when it came to reusing successful formats. He later retooled the screenplay for Fugitive Girls which morphed into Five Loose Women in 1974.

Ed Wood Strikes Again

[Lechuguilla · 2/10 · 9 October 2009]

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.

Girls Going Wild

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 23 February 2014]

Never let it be said that Ed Wood was afraid to tackle some burning social issues and he does so again here with his usual skill. The Violent Years talks about female delinquency as wealthy, but bored Jean Moorhead gathers around her some followers and they form a girl gang. These chicks are out for action and with them being masked, the law thinks that it's after your typical male holdup gang as the girls start going through all the local filling stations.

But these brazen harlots don't stop there. Unmasked they terrorize couples in a frequented lover's lane and tie up the women and then force men to their sexual wills. I don't know about you, but that's normally the kind of thing that is not best done under pressure at the point of a gun.

In the end Moorhead is pregnant and commits murder and the wages of sin are exacted by the long arm of the law in the person of noted character actor I. Stanford Jolley who looks like he's needing some laxative as he intones the sentence and his views on parents who do not give good supervision and values to their kids. Poor Jolley who is the only person in this cast who has a decent resume probably fired his agent after he signed him up for this.

Ed Wood, they'll never be another like you.

Girls gone somewhat askew.

[JoshSpurling · 1/10 · 26 February 2007]

Four teenage girls, who are well into their twenties, disguise themselves as boys (they wear bandannas) and "run rampage" through the city by pushing their sexual advances on a weaselly boy on Lovers' Lane and hitting a gas station employee with a handgun, not killing him of course, but, as one policeman remarks, "Not for lack of trying."

After enduring a friend of her father's who shows up at their slumber party, trying to hold a conversation with the "teens" as they make out robotically, Paula leads the gang on their most heinous crime of all: breaking into their classroom in order to slightly disrupt the furniture and even erase the blackboard! Fortunately, the cops show up before they can finish the job, and a shoot-out ensues. One of the girls, after being blasted with a shotgun, announces, "It wasn't supposed to be like this," before lying down gently with no visible signs of damage whatsoever. The other three girls high-tail it out of the school but stop directly in front of the cops to chat long enough for another girl to be shot down as well. Day and night lose all meaning as the remaining two girls speed off at a snail's pace past the police.

After another shooting, the girls have a wonderfully ridiculous car crash into a plate glass window, killing one of them. Paula receives some cuts on her face, but manages to live just long enough to give birth to her illegitimate child. A judge refuses to grant Paula's parents custody of the child and further punishes them by reading a speech so long and pointless that even he seems to be dozing off by the end. In short, it's the fault of the parents that Paula turned to a hobby of crime because they didn't give her enough love or force religion upon her. Let this be a lesson to us all.

"The Violent Years" isn't nearly as inept as "Plan 9 From Outer Space" or "Glen or Glenda?" (possibly because Ed Wood only wrote it, didn't direct it) but it's still terribly entertaining.

"So what!"

[pan-10 · 10/10 · 4 June 2000]

The 1956 sociological study of the serious, but rarely spoken about, problem of armed robbery of gas stations perpetrated by affluent young women in tight sweaters during the mid 1950's is one that should surely receive further serious study. The footage of the "criminal attack" on the innocent young man on lovers lane by the beautiful, but depraved, bandits is one that I found highly disturbing. The expose became even more shocking as the pulchritudinous quartet were enlisted into the service of a foreign power, and during a particularly nefarious mission to overturn chairs and tables and knock over books in a classroom, they almost succeeded in doing something terrible to our flag. Also, during the latter mission, policemen, guards, and members of the evil gang were shot during a ferocious gunfight. At the end, the leader of the gang is finally sentenced to the state penitentiary where she gives birth to an out-of-wedlock baby. She dies and the baby is rightfully made to serve out the remainder of her sentence. Meanwhile, the affluent, but self-absorbed, parents of the wayward gangster are given several severe talkings to by the same judge who sentenced their daughter, and they are told to attend church more frequently in the future. This shocking expose was written by Mr. Edward D. Wood, Jr. I for one definitely intend to give a great deal of thought to the problem of bad girls in tight sweaters.

10 stars...or zero stars...? I don't know how to rate Ed Wood's anti-masterpieces. They're so bad that they go all the way around the dial and become great! Hilariously greatly bad. Not as hilariously greatly bad as Plan 9, but then what is?

Pan-10

the girl gang with their big pointy bosoms

[christopher-underwood · 6/10 · 16 February 2009]

A bit heavy handed and moralising but certainly has some feisty moments. I loved the girl gang with their big pointy bosoms and snarling expressions and guns. Holding up petrol stations for kicks and in the end wrecking schoolrooms and getting into a gunfight with the police. Actually they didn't do much more than push over the chairs and wipe the blackboard clean, even replacing the duster on the shelf afterwards. But they talked big, had those big bosoms and did seem keen on a bit more action than seemed to be promised elsewhere. Somewhere writer Ed Wood is trying to make some comment about all the juvenile delinquency being the fault of the parents, but there is a fine scene when a guy's girlfriend is made to take off her sweater (angora?) and skirt and then be bound in her shiny underwear whilst aforementioned guy is chased into the woods by the four bosom pals for some naughtiness. Our leading bad girl is removing her top in full frame as the picture fades and the young man protests.

Hilariously ham-handed "expose" of Juvenile Deliquency as only Ed Wood can do it

[lemon_magic · 3/10 · 6 June 2012]

Well, Ed Wood only wrote the screen play for this, which explains why "The Violent Years" isn't as spastic and incompetent as his own self-directed "masterpieces". But his tin ear for dialog and 6th grade level sense of plotting and character development come through perfectly, so anyone who enjoys EW movies will enjoy this one for all the usual reasons.

There are so many "great" moments here: the moment when Paula commands her gang "We've all got guns, let's get 'em into action!!", rather than something simple and coherent such "Fire your guns at the cops!". Or the moment where the reporter drops Paula's creepy boyfriend with one punch, and the creep cartwheels onto the floor in a direction that is actually not possible for a person hit with a right cross from that angle. Or the amazingly stilted initial greetings between Paula and her charity-crazed mom. Or the rambling, droning lecture by the judge where he talks about the need for more time in the woodshed and the return to Bible based values with all the conviction of a shoe salesman at Payless.

Bonus: even with a bunch of padding, the movie is actually pretty short, barely more than an hour. Another bonus (speaking of padding!): torpedo tits and tight sweaters standing in for character development.

So pull on your favorite skin tight Angora sweater and your best pumps and sit down and watch this today.

Tacky sensation melodrama

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 7 January 2019]

THE VIOLENT YEARS is another tacky sensation film of the 1950s, one of many to detail the dangers of alcohol abuse, drugs and whatnot. This one's themed around juvenile delinquency and in particular the misadventures of a girl gang who are up to all kinds of no good. It's all rather ridiculous, of course, not helped by a ripe script and plenty of overacting from the participants.

Bored teens turn to dangerous thrills.

[michaelRokeefe · 3/10 · 5 April 2008]

This is a low-budget little drama written by Ed Wood Jr. focusing on what can happen when parents don't make enough time to spend with their children. Paula Parkins(Jean Morehead)is a spoiled little rich girl. Her father(Arthur Millan)is the editor of the local newspaper and her mother(Barbara Weeks)is a social climber. At night Paula and her friends dress as men and rob gas stations. They attack young lovers parked in lover's lane and actually sexually assault an unlucky/lucky guy. Of course all the mayhem that develops and progresses will turn to tragedy. Drive-in movie fare. Other players: Theresa Hancock, Gloria Farr, Lee Constant and Timothy Farrell.

Like a stale and boring version of the first half of A Clockwork Orange

[jorgen_eg · 2/10 · 22 April 2010]

I saw this on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, I guess that's what made it possible to watch. The acting is terrible, the camera angles are dreadfully boring, the editing is weak and the music is rather lame. And the judge's everlasting monologues! I just wanted it to end, but it lasted on and on and on... I rank that one of the most boring moments in movie history, ever.

The whole deal with the girls running round robbing, raping and eventually killing, its kind of like in A Clockwork Orange, except of course, its nothing like Kubricks masterpiece, but who'd expect that from Ed Wood?

This is the second Ed Wood movie I've seen, Plan 9 of course being the first. Plot-wise The Violent Years is much better, but Plan 9 from Outer-Space is one of those movies that's so-bad-they're-epic-but-still- pretty-bad. The Violent Years is just boring, considering the plot, it should have been far more fast-paced and it has a potential that it just doesn't live up to. That and the fact that Ed Wood really deserved his reputation as the worlds worst director.

The female version of I Accuse My Parents!

[Aaron1375 · 3/10 · 16 April 2012]

I saw this Ed Wood written film as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Typical Ed Wood film, though it looks better than the other films that he not only wrote, but directed as well. This one is like a female, I Accuse My Parents, only in this one you are going to have a hard time trying to sympathize with the lead girl in this one, because while the boy in I Accuse My Parents is a dope, he is not trying to go out and intentionally hurt anyone, unlike the leader of the gang of girls in this one. The parents of this girl were not quite as negligent as his parents either as his mother was constantly getting drunk and stuff, while here their major crime is the father works a bit too much and the mother likes to do charities. Meanwhile, they shower her with gifts and money and don't question what she is doing at night. Of course a girl is going to go wild, that is what females do when they are teens. It does not matter what the parents did, even if they coddled her it would have made her rebel! Oh sorry, that was a bit of a rant, just comes from the experience of living with a sister that was crazy during her teen years I guess.

The story has a group of girls performing various crimes throughout a small town. Robbing gas stations, trashing schools, attacking couples and raping young men. Wait, what? Yes, you heard me correctly, they are very bad girls. The leader, as I have stated is basically the daughter of every well off parents. She even uses her dad to help her with her crimes as the father is the head of a newspaper and is covering the crime spree so she gets information from him that he gets from the police. They have a chance at a big score that apparently involves trashing a school by doing very minimal vandalism and this somehow leads to a shootout with the police which leads to a very long winded courtroom session that features Judge Pad Film.

As an episode of Mystery Science Theater, it is one I find very funny and one that kind of is one of the main reasons I prefer Mike Nelson as the host of the show to Joel Robinson. Do not get me wrong, I like both and it is not a huge gap or anything, it just seems I find that Mike hosted shows hit the ball out of the park more often. From the bumps which includes one of my favorite sketches of a radio station named Frank to the very funny riffs that litter the film. Joel did an Ed Wood film too, but it was not quite as good. I always feel the jokes come at you at a better pace with Mike than Joel, which is one of the reasons I lost excitement over the show's revival as Mike has nothing to do with it. I will probably give it a chance, but I just do not think the show will be as funny without him, because even when he was not the host, he was the head writer.

So, the film is not good; however, what do you expect? It is an Ed Wood film. That being said, I say Ed Wood was a much better film maker than another Mystery Science Theater regular in Coleman Francis. Ed Wood's films looked cheap had some bad acting and were generally bad all around, but they at least had tangible plots for the most part and while they looked cheap they looked like films. Coleman Francis films were all over the place and at times resembled someone just recording random things! So, a not so good film that at least had a plot going for it and a great film for the gang to riff. Now, I should go before that judge comes to my house and starts telling me about how society and parents are why Ed Wood films exist.

Trashy, entertaining, but too short

[wilvram · 4/10 · 5 May 2020]

Thoroughly entertaining for most of the time, this is the story of a bored, wealthy young woman who forms a gang with like-minded friends and has a whale of a time robbing gas stations, trashing schools and making men sexual offers they can't refuse. They are occasionally employed by Sheila, a splendid older gang moll in a tight sweater, whose appearance sadly only lasts a couple of minutes prior to her being gunned down. The plot runs from one absurdity to the next including two cop cars racing to a disturbance at a school and going in with all guns blazing, as if Bonnie and Clyde were in there. Unfortunately Mr Wood seemed to forget what the audience had paid to see, and devotes nearly a fifth of the running time to the patently phony moralizing required to justify everything else. This provides some fun in itself, with the veteran actor playing the judge clearly reading his interminable lines, while the distraught mother bemoans giving her errant daughter Paula 'a new dress instead of a caress'. In fact Paula, played by the glamorous Jean Moorhead, looks ravishing in the one-piece she wears at the pajama party, no doubt from 'Victor Most of California', who gets a credit. Pity the film was so short and the ending such a washout.

Ugh

[artpf · 1/10 · 20 October 2013]

A newspaper publisher's daughter suffers from neglect by her parents.

She and her friends turn to crime by dressing up like men, holding up gas stations, raping young men at gunpoint, and having make out parties when her parents are away.

Their "fence" gets them to trash the school on request of sinister un- American clients, and they run afoul of the law, apple pie, and God himself.

Oddly, this rather boring film was the most successful of films touched by Ed Wood.

Perhaps cuz it stars a Playboy centerfold. Who knows? Some of the film seems to be shot in silent mode with only SFX and music dubbed in. It also seems way too well written to be Ed Wood. Not saying it's good, BTW.

Good girls gone melodramatically bad

[mtckoch · 8/10 · 26 September 2014]

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.

A riot...almost.

[monoceros4 · 7/10 · 18 August 2009]

I think the real lesson of THE VIOLENT YEARS is that girls make really stupid criminals. Robert DeNiro's gang in HEAT is torn to pieces after the cops show up during a major-league bank heist; the same thing happens to spoiled rich girl Paula and her crew, only it's because the cops interrupt them while inflicting minor, easily reparable damage on a schoolroom. This action (sort of) set piece is a hoot to watch: the girls go wild, erasing the blackboard and ripping up the desktop blotter and turning over the chairs, but then as one girl contemplates desecrating the American flag the cops show up. Rather than face a juvenile hall stay for breaking windows, Paula and the gang do what any smart criminals would do: get out their irons and start blasting. Paula further demonstrates her criminal smarts by killing a cop, then demanding payment for the botched job from her boss--who, because she is also a female criminal in the world of THE VIOLENT YEARS, instead of playing it safe and playing for time, promptly turns her back on the desperately stupid brat brandishing a gun and an inflated ego.

You have to give Paula this, anyway; she's smarter than Jimmy Wilson in I ACCUSE MY PARENTS. But then he at least had genuinely bad parents. Paula's folks are kindly and ridiculously generous, plying her with new dresses and a new car *every year*. But her dad was always so busy at his job and her mom so engaged in her charity work (remember that, mothers: having an outside interest means your child will turn to crime) that attention-starved Paula was forced to take up petty theft. She's almost adorable with her affected snarl and tough-girl talk as she struggles valiantly to strike a fearsome pose. To make herself feel better she takes care to surround herself with only with pathetic lowlifes and third-raters; in one hilarious bit, a reporter visits her (very tame) birthday sleep-over and drops one of her male friends with a single punch. It all makes for an entertaining ride through the laughable career of one of the dumbest crooks ever to star in a movie.

Well, almost. The movie rolls along until the last act, when it suddenly freezes in its tracks to mete out poetic justice and endless lecturing from a judge who tells us that the only way to stamp out youthful crime is with corporal punishment in the "old fashioned woodshed" and with regular church-going. (As Mike Nelson summarizes, "Beat the love of Jesus into them!") Not content to punish Paula with a life sentence and death in childbirth, the movie then punishes both her parents *and* her baby daughter by refusing the parents custody and sentencing the daughter to life in a state home. Mike and the 'bots salvage some entertainment from the droning moralizing; I can scarcely imagine what it must have been like to watch in the movie theater. Ironically it might have been better in the hands of Ed Wood, who supplied the story but not the direction. THE VIOLENT YEARS is competently directed as Ed Wood could never have managed but at least Eddie had the sense to keep his pontificating short. Even the ridiculous "pornography is worse than dope peddling" scene from THE SINISTER URGE is over with in less time than it takes for the hectoring judge in THE VIOLENT YEARS to tell us what time of day it is.

Not teenagers... Idiots!

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 17 September 2015]

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.

Flat, flat, flat.

[stormofwar · 2/10 · 6 July 2009]

Written by Ed Wood of Plan 9 fame, this film centers on a group of girls who run around doing all sorts of criminal shenanigans. The problem is the film is just...boring. Honestly, I got more entertainment out of watching fish then this film.

I supposed it was some 50's psycho-drama, but the film opens in one of the worst ways possible. Basically, a very small court room where parents are being a judge who looks oddly like Commissioner Gordon from the Batman comic franchise. From there, it recaps the whole story as one giant flashback, including one of the girls getting impregnated via raping a man (this does happen, but on the whole treated in a very "meh" fashion). Two of the gang die and no one cares, some other stuff happens, and end story.

Truth is, the basic technical aspects are good, but they are drowned out by the bad acting, bad script, and bland feeling that makes it seem everyone had other things they'd rather be doing.

Going forward, there are worse films from multiple stand points, but otherwise, this does just fall flat. Nothing overly glaring, no outstanding rampaging plot holes, no real issues with production. Just all in all, boring.

3/10 stars. There are worse, but avoid this film unless you are drunk and like "bad girls"