Untamed Youth (1957) User Reviews (39)

Worth watching for Mamie and Eddie!

[hemisphere65-1 · 5/10 · 18 June 2021]

As awful as most of the musical numbers are, it's great to see Eddie Cochran performing!

Mamie Van Doren is pretty good in this movie, as corny as it is. John Russell is great as the jerk ranch owner; very convincing bad guy.

I can think of at least a couple reasons to watch this one.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 12 March 2020]

When the film begins, a cop comes upon two sexy sisters skinny dipping. When taken to court for this, it becomes obvious that the arrest was part of a scam to get free labor at a local cotton farm. Once sentenced to this work farm, the women (Mamie Van Doren and Lori Nelson) see that it's practically slave labor...and the 'pay' they are to receive is next to nothing....and they feed them dog food! Can anything be done to stop this obvious abuse of power?

This is a weird film. It easily could have been a great exposee film. However, instead of just focusing on this work farm, the film ALSO is a rock 'n roll flick....and seeing folks picking cotton and singing rock is surreal to say the least...as well as a bit ridiculous! After all, they are worked like dogs all day yet somehow have the energy to rock all night long!! Too bad most of the singing wasn't all that great.

So is it any good? Well, it is entertaining though not exactly subtle! And, because the Catholic Legion of Decency panned the film because of its overtly sexual plot...lots of Catholics lined up to see it! Regardless, the picture made a lot of money...so Warner Brothers got the last laugh! But overall, it's not an especially good film due to its strange combination of exposee and second-rate rock....it just didn't make a lot of sense. It would have been much better with less rock and less cheesecake and more on the abuse of power. Overall, an enjoyable 'trash' film that might also make you laugh at times....but not a particularly good movie.

By the way, if you do watch this film, get a load of that final number about the Calypso! It's hilarious!!

Mamie Gyrates

[atlasmb · 5/10 · 17 June 2015]

The story of an unscrupulous cotton farm owner who uses the local correction system for his personal profit, the focus of "Untamed Youth" is really the unbridled sexuality of rock and roll, then in its infancy.

Consider this tagline: "Starring the girl built like a platinum powerhouse-- Mamie Van Doren." The film offers some scenes of rock and roll dancing awkwardly shoehorned into the scenes of dramatic social injustice. And those scenes of dancing are not bad, despite the corny gyrations of Van Doren. The story as a whole is a mess.

Best viewed as a novelty, "Untamed Youth" fits perfectly into the genre of low-grade drive-in movie fare.

Goofy Mix

[dougdoepke · 20 March 2012]

Okay, I confess to paying money to see this exploitation flick back in '57. No doubt the juicy title plus mammary goddess Van Doren is what pulled this horny teenager in. Then too, it's likely my standards haven't risen much in the meantime. Anyway, back then, I thought the movie just plain weird—after all, the sight of super stud John Russell passion kissing a frumpy 50-year old Irene Tuttle was like seeing him, oh my gosh, passion kiss his mother. But now I think the movie's just plain goofy.

It's really two films badly stitched into one, like some mismatched two-headed critter that can't make up its mind. On one side is the rock-and-roll skin show, with kids in trouble but having a lot of fun anyway. The wild rebellious dance scene is still a grabber and could stand for that teen era, as a whole. Now, however, Van Doren looks more like a cartoon than anything real as she keeps slipping sideways for the camera.

The other half is a serious type expose with Russell showing no sense of humor or fun, at all. And he's backed up by a lot of corrupt county officials and thuggish henchmen who keep threatening the kids. Too bad the movie guys in charge didn't split this serious side from the R&R. With a little work and that monster cotton-combine, they might have had a follow-up to the classic farm-nightmare of Border Incident (1949).

Instead, this flick leaves us to ponder the eternal question of why Calypso didn't replace R&R as record exec's of the time expected. Oh well, some cosmic mysteries just aren't meant to be solved. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to hunt down more of these silly old teen flicks.

Bosom Buddies

[wes-connors · 5/10 · 29 June 2013]

On their way to seek fame and fortune in Los Angeles, top-heavy singer Mamie Van Doren (as Penny Lowe) and her guitar-strumming accomplice Lori Nelson (as Janey Lowe) are caught hitch-hiking. The sisters are brought before a small-town southern judge. Apparently, filmmakers decided the shapely pair would be more alluring skinny-dipping than hitch-hiking, so this is how the film opens. The script says hitching, but the visual suggests nudity (of course, their naughtiest body parts are hidden). Looking sexy and sexier, Ms. Nelson and Ms. Van Doren are sentenced to pick cotton on a farm...

They are treated very poorly by dastardly John Russell (as Russ Tropp). He is secretly involved with matronly judge Lurene Tuttle (as Cecilia Steele). Her handsome son Don Burnett (as Bob Steele) arrives to set things right and romance Ms. Nelson. "Untamed Youth" features a tightly-attired, ample-bodied and highly arousing Ms. Van Doren. She sings pseudo-rock 'n' roll in a slip, swinging and swiveling. The soundtrack highlight is Eddie Cochran (as Bongo) performing Les Baxter's derivative "Cotton-picker". The song arrangement doesn't really rock, but Mr. Cochran makes it seem authentic.

***** Untamed Youth (5/10/57) Howard W. Koch ~ Mamie Van Doren, Lori Nelson, John Russell, Don Burnett

The big house

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 28 March 2021]

If I were to go back in time and make a bad kids movie, I would put all of my budget into getting Mamie Van Doren, who is to this genre what Sean Connery is to the Eurospy film.

Mamie and Lori Nelson (Hot Rod Girl) play Penny and Jane Lowe, two sisters who have been arrested for hitchhiking and skinny dipping. This sends them to a Texas work farm owned by Russ Tropp (John Russell, TV's Lawman). He's got a great scam going, because he's dating a judge (Lurene Tuttle, the "First Lady of Radio") who he's using to get any teen who commits a minor crime sent to his business as cheap labor.

Eddie Cochran plays Bong, another prison worker, and Mamie does four songs. I love every single one of them and really wish that I hadn't seen nearly every one of her movies, because then I could see them all over again and get the charge I had when I saw them for the first time.

Howard W. Koch, who directed this, also made Frankenstein 1970 and went on to produce the Airplane! Movies.

I actually enjoyed this film.

[psiebold1 · 5/10 · 14 April 2010]

If they edited out the music bits, this film would have been quite enjoyable. The musical numbers are mostly brain-clawing but they have their merits on their own.

I came across this film through MST3K and I have to say this film was a bad choice for the show. It was too good for MST3K and that their commentary was only necessary through the musical numbers.

As for the acting, not spectacular but passable enough to make me not cringe or anything like that. Even the musical numbers were passably choreographed. The plot was alright, had some themes that have haunting overtones 50 years after the fact - and that may have been the saving grace of the film. In fact, in the oblique fashion of an exploitation film, the theme was done justice in the film. If it had been a disparaging polemic on the subject, it would have gone into the deep end of ultimate Heinleinian hot-air. But it didn't do that. No, it danced around the subject as though we were supposed to be more afraid of the adults who were going to put us in our place by instigating fear into the teenagers and children of the time.

As for the musical numbers - I'd rather listen to them on a CD, not spliced into a film at random intervals. The writing could have been a lot tighter here and that is probably why it stunk for so long.

Lamie Van Doren

[Oosterhartbabe · 2/10 · 14 December 2005]

No offense to Mamie, she's a lovely, voluptuous woman. But her acting chops are minor at best, and she should never, EVER try to sing. Not that any of the 'hip' youthful songs in this movie were any good at all. The plot, about a town in a cotton pickin' county, is rather lame, involving a dishonest female judge and a sleazy cotton grower. Oil-hair boy has seduced the judge (a woman old enough to be his mother) into changing the city laws so that people can be arrested for even minor infractions such as jay-walking and then be sent to his cotton farm as free labor. There are plenty of 'interesting' lesser characters, such as the leering deputy who arrest mamie and her sister at the swimming hole, the drunken overseer, and the greasy chow cook with the pumpkin pie fetish. Why they call this film 'Untamed Youth' I don't know since most of these kids seemed really drab and half-asleep most of the time??? Rounding this out this cast was a woman whose purpose I wasn't really sure about and whose sex was indeterminate, since she looked like Greg Brady in a dress and wig. When these 'criminals' weren't slaving in the field, they were rockin' the house, although you'd think they'd be exhausted after all that physical labor. Unfortunately, no. We were treated to many, many scenes of bad singing and 'dancing'.

There was a subplot with one of the girls who was five months pregnant and whose nickname just happened to be baby. She dropped dead from a miscarriage, making you wonder if the director had a king-sized trowel for laying on the morality tale. To top it all off, the underscoring soundtrack was of the soft core porn variety, heavy on the sleazy trumpet.

These youth films of the late fifties, early sixties, were a curious phenomenon. It was as though the adults of the time sensed the coming of the hippie generation and were trying to hold on to their old way of life by brainwashing the youth of America into being good. I don't know who their intended audience was since I'm fairly sure none of the targeted teen types would have gone to see them. ???

One in a series from a bygone era of films about "Our Troubled Youth"

[lemon_magic · 4/10 · 2 January 2006]

All right...all you really need to know about "Untamed Youth" is that it stars Mamie Van Doren. You know, Jayne Mansfield Lite. The "Plain Label" version of Marilyn Monroe. Go see it if you like movies with her in them.

...

Still here? Well, for what it is, it isn't bad. It's an exploitation film which revels in the youth and sexuality of its cast while hypocritically preaching against the "bad guys" who would exploit them. You know the kind. There's a heavy handed screenplay which moralizes about corrupt officials, exploited teenagers who just wanna dance, and owing your soul to the company store. Mamie and the kids triumph in the end because You Just Can't Keep A Good Girl Down. Ed Wood would have been proud to have written this screenplay.

And Ed's usual ensemble cast would have fit right in here. You don't expect 'real' acting in a movie like this (any more than you would in a Republic serial like "Commando Cody"), and you don't get it. Everyone says their lines and hits their marks, and everyone is appropriate to the material and the script. Waddaya want from them? They were hacks!

Did I mention that "Untamed Youth" has staged musical numbers (apparently to showcase Mamie's "musical talents") along with the usual scenes of the Untamed Youth(s) dancing ecstatically to the juke box/sock hop? In fact they made the mistake of having Mamie sing three of the numbers (because in the script she and her sister were hitch hiking to Hollywood to make it big, donchaknow ). I'll try to be kind: my little sister could sing (and dance) rings around Mamie after 3 years of voice lessons, and my sister never made a dime singing or dancing professionally in her life. So what you get from Mamie is all showbiz gestures and tail-feather shaking and no vocal talent. But no one expects "real" singing from Mamie, so just turn up the mental audio static and watch the dance steps, and you'll keep the annoyance factor to a manageable level. And try not to think too much about who owed who a favor in Hollywood and how someone with Van Doren's musical "talent" got to sing in front of a camera.

Much of the rest of the music and some of the dancing isn't bad at all...some of it is even striking. I've learned that Eddie Cochran was involved in some of the numbers, which may explain this. Unfortunately, however, in almost every group dance number, one of the minor male actors is featured repeatedly in the background doing the dorkiest, weirdest dance...thing...ever filmed. I can't do it justice. It involves flapping his knees open and closed in a no-hands "Charleston" while staying on his tip toes, while his torso stays perfectly erect. You'll have to see it to believe it. So minus several stars for scarring me emotionally with that image. BTW,I saw that identical move (years later) in another film called "Teenage Strangler", performed by what I could have sworn was the very same actor, and it again made me want to put my eyes out with a hot poker. Where's Eddie Deezen when you need him??

I should mention that Lori Nelson (playing Van Doren's little sister) is also pretty hot in a "My Three Sons" kind of way, and she adds some nice eye candy to the scenes she appears in, kind of a "sweet" balance to Mamie's brasher, more assertive style. So that's one thing the film makers did right.

To summarize: it's a Mamie Van Doren film (with an faux Ed Wood screenplay) that pretends that Mamie can sing and dance. And act. Go see it if you like that sort of thing. Me, I don't blame any of the cast or crew for trying to make a living, but I think I'll go back and listen to my old Kay Kyser records.

1950s "B" movie that's fun to watch

[robertmurray-70637 · 7/10 · 23 October 2019]

While the story may seem contrived (hitchhikers arrested and forced to do farm labor) , it was a fact that certain rural agricultural California towns did exactly that, for decades. Farmers who grow crops that must be hand-picked always need cheap labor and are never too fussy about where they get it. Mamie Van Doren steals the show. OK, the musical numbers are a bit silly but the cast members can dance. Some of them are doing goofy dance steps for laughs, but watch the other couples - that is a demonstration of 1950s teen dancing as good as you will see in film. If you just watch the musical scenes, you won't miss anything because the plot is predictable, and nothing really interesting happens when Mamie isn't singing and the kids aren't dancing.

Why didn't Hanes Her Way underwrite this film?

[Sterno-2 · 2/10 · 21 September 1999]

Mamie Van Doren stars in this little teen-exploitation flick about two sisters (of which Ms. Van Doren is one) who are caught trespassing while swimming in a pond. The sisters are charged with hitchhiking, and their sentence is to work on a cotton farm whose owner is the secret husband of the judge who sent them there.

The cotton farm for these prisoners is a 20th century version of the company store, where the "costs" associated with their employment outpace their "wages", keeping them in continuous servitude to the farm's owner.

The filmmaker wastes few opportunities to showcase Ms. Van Doren in her underwear, or in tight fitting sweaters. Curiously, for supposedly being fed dog food, these "untamed youth" have a surprising amount of energy to pick cotton all day, and then dance the night away without a care in the world. Mix into the cast a beatnik cook who is out of place in this agricultural gulag, and you have an embarassing film that shows youth as rebels only in the sense that they do not conform to the arbitrary standards of the crooked, yet wooden authority figures.

If you want to see one of the first films condemned by the Catholic church, tune in to see why. If you want to improve your MST riffing skills, this movie is for you. If you want to see this as a double feature with The Grapes of Wrath, rent the Milagro Beanfield War instead.

Great, silly fun

[amosduncan_2000 · 8/10 · 1 March 2007]

You have to be a real stick in the mud not to get a kick out of this movie; or it's sister film "Girl's Town." I am still wondering what inspired Pinky's great speech ("I am a just man") but the rest is simply. Cheesy rock and roll, cool chicks, and a moral lesson driven home with the subtly of a huge Cotton gin falling on you. Many of the current political problems with our immigrant work force are foreshadowed. If only today's politicos had a Mamie to help iron out all the fuss. If only they had given Eddie Cochran a better song.... The MST3K version is worth seeking out; but this is one that stands on it's own.

Justice and the gentleman shall prevail

[Ed-Shullivan · 6/10 · 9 November 2020]

Law and Order! Law and Order! How often have we seen and heard those words wreak untrue but in the bitter end the film Untamed Youth deserved a rightful ending and yes, the bad guys get their just reward and are put behind bars. Mamie Van Doren starred in this low budget black and white crime film and she got to show off her singing and dancing chops and of course she would not be Mamie Van Doren if she didn't deliberately open up her top to allow the male hormones a better gander of her singing and swinging lungs (no nudity).

Don't expect much when two sisters Penny (Mamie Van Doren) and Jane Lowe (Lori Nelson) are unceremoniously caught skinny dipping in a pond while 'en route to a paid singing gig when the local dirty sheriff arrests them for vagrancy and a forlorn female judge who is smitten by the ranch owner puts them on a cotton farm to pick cotton for him as cheaper labor than even the Mexicans would work for otherwise.

A romance begins brewing between Jane Lowe and a new ranch foreman Bob Steele (Don Burnett) who was recommended by his mother the cheating judge Judge Cecilia Steele/Tropp (Lurene Tuttle) to work for her secretly married husband the thieving cotton ranch owner Russ Tropp (John Russell) who runs his ranch patrolling his farm with two vicious Doberman Pincher dogs to keep both his prisoners and the farmhands in line.

Mamie Van Doren sings and dances as the girls are eventually freed from their wrongful imprisonment, and her sister Jane falls in love with the gentleman foreman Bob Steele who came to the prisoners rescue. So sing and dance your way as these young women and men are freed from their wrongful imprisonment and accept their fate as law and order eventually prevail.

I give the film a decent 6 out of 10 IMDB rating.

Cotton pickin' blonds

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 18 June 2018]

Mamie Van Doren and Lori Nelson a pair of blond sisters do a bit of skinny dipping while making their way to California. They get picked up by the local law and get sentenced to 30 days on a prison farm run by John Russell.

They grow cotton on the Russell plantation and that's just about how he treats the prisoners. Feeding them on cheap slop and paying next to nothing Russell gets a steady supply of labor courtesy of his wife Judge Lurene Tuttle. She's a recent widow and it's more than hinted at that Tuttle has some itch that needs scratching.

Even before Cesar Chavez organized the farm workers apparently even they were paid better than Russell's convict labor. Scarlett O'Hara would be proud.

It's not all bad, it's a coed prison farm with a coed prison recreation hall that has a jukebox. The prisoners also includ Eddie Cochran before he found there was no cure for the summertime blues.

When Yvonne Lime dies from overwork and lack of pre-natal care that marks the beginning of the end for Russell's set up. Besides our blond leads young Don Burnett who is Tuttle's son by her first marriage helps bring his wilfully naive mother to her senses.

Untamed Youth is trash through and through. But Mamie while she can't act is sure nice to look it. John Russell resisted the urge I'm sure to camp up his villainy and plays it painfully straight. Then there's Eddie Cochran to sing a bit.

Still anyone who thinks this film is worthwhile is out of his cotton pickin' mind.

"If you had two heads you'd still be a moron!"

[Michael_Elliott · 10 March 2012]

Untamed Youth (1957)

** (out of 4)

If you look at any critic books you're probably going to find this one with a BOMB rating and it being called one of the worst films of all time. Something this entertaining can't be considered one of the worst ever made. Period. Sisters Penny (Mamie Van Doren) and Jane (Lori Nelson) Lowe gets picked up by a crooked Sheriff and the two are sentenced by a crooked judge to a work farm where the owner abuses the workers and gets his pockets filled with their hard work. Soon the judge's son (Don Burnett) returns home from the Navy and begins to see what's really going on at the camp. UNTAMED YOUTH is one of many drive-in juvenile flicks that were released in this era and while it has one of the worst reputations of any, this is just so memorable because of all the camp, wild dialogue and unbelievable situations. I'm really not sure where you start but there's some of the most memorable dialogue that you're ever going to find in a film. There this: "Don't hit me in the mouth again. You'll break my dental plate". Also this: "If you had two heads you'd still be a moron." You've also got an opening sequence with the two beautiful blonds skinny dipping with the perverted Sheriff spying on them. There's also some very campy musical numbers, which for some reason the "inmates" are able to put on. I'm still not sure why the evil owner allowed all of this considering everything else he was doing to them. Then there's the hilarious ending where the people finally can't take any more. I won't ruin what exactly happens but it's certainly funny. Mamie Van Doren, as you'd expect, gives a pretty blah performance but that pointy bra is constantly at work. Nelson actually gives a pretty good performance as she's the only thing that doesn't come off campy. The supporting players all fit their roles nicely. UNTAMED YOUTH is pure camp and I'd say it deserves the right to be considered a cult classic.

Not gonna make a cotton picker out of me!

[Aaron1375 · 2/10 · 4 May 2014]

Saw this on an episode of MST3K and not the type of movie I would have ever watched without the gang of the satellite of love. A rousing musical type with an evil farmer. The film though does have a the benefit of having a very attractive leading lady in Mamie Van Doren. Unfortunately, usually when the camera is on her, she is singing a very bland tune that sounds pretty much like everything else in the film. The other girls are cute too, but you get to see Mamie's panties and she is definitely the one whose looks stand out the most.

The story has a judge who sends teens and youthful offenders to a farm to work out their sentences. The conditions on the farm are harsh and the sun outside is brutal. However, though the teens are exhausted, they somehow manage to party during the night! The owner of this farm is dastardly though, and he has evil schemes aplenty. One of the people who are forced to work on this farm is having severe problems, but the owner does nothing to help this person.

This movie made for an okay episode of MST3K, but I prefer it when they make fun of horror or science fiction films. This one is almost a musical which does not work as well with the riffing format as other film genres. The movie taken by itself just does not work for me, because it is more of a musical than anything else. The film is almost like one of those prison films of the 70's, just minus the soft core sex scenes. This was in the 50's though so a peek at some panties as the hot girl twirls is about as good as it got during mainstream films during this era.

It's a great film, if you view it as a comedy.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 11 June 2019]

Deliciously bad films are always so much fun to watch and in the case of this wacky prison farm drama, it is filled with every camp element available. The only thing that is missing is Hope Emerson standing over the prisoners on John Russell's prison farm with a whip. Instead of that we have Lurene Tuttle as the judge sentencing everybody who comes through her Court to Russell's farm, supposedly cutting in on the profits. no sooner has she sentenced sisters Lori Nelson and Mamie Van Doren to the farm, and before they have even left the court, she's waving and ecstasy at her newly arrived son, Don Burnett. He is a kind soul who has been off in college and when he gets a job working at the farm at a regular salary, he notices the cruelties in which Van doren, Nelson and the others are being treated and strives to stop Russell in his tracks. But a secret between his mom and Russell is too much for him to bear and it takes him standing up for what's right to turn things around.

While the temptation is there for those of us who categorize our movie collection to put this in as a musical, I would not make that determination myself. I classify this as a cult movie which happens to have a few songs and dance numbers, sung deliciously bad by Van Doren, an even more poor man's Jayne Mansfield who was the poor man's Marilyn Monroe. The acting for the most part is pretty atrocious with everybody directed to overact and bray their lines. The musical numbers are hysterically funny with a cotton song sung by a bad Elvis impersonator and a Calypso finale that has to be seen to be believed. Still, it's satisfying as fun trash, one to share with friends over cocktails on a Saturday night and laugh over.

Lame but fun

[kimbpaul · 5/10 · 11 June 2021]

Took me awhile, but I finally figured out why I kept watching...it's Dirty Dancing on a work farm instead of a resort in the Poconos. Darker, sure, but still. Got cute girls, the boys full of angst, a pregnant girl, music and dancing and secrets. Couldn't figure out who the really tall young male dancer was (standing still with his hand on the girl's head while she danced around him) but he was fun to watch whenever he was in the scene. It was a cute little film.

Go, Go, Calypso!

[moonspinner55 · 3/10 · 20 March 2024]

Cotton work farm in Texas for co-ed criminals is run by shady boss who has married the much-older female judge in town just to get the law on his side; the judge's son gets a job on the farm driving the harvester and smells a rat (or maybe it's just the dog food the rock-loving juvies are made to eat). Fruity teen opus from director Howard W. Koch and a slumming Warner Bros. Is poorly-written, acted and presented, with a Mamie Van Doren calypso number tacked on at the end that goes on forever. Drive-in dreck was originally condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency! Mamie-addicts will up the rating a notch or two. *1/2 from ****

no awards

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 30 September 2020]

Entertainer sisters Penny (Mamie Van Doren) and Jane Lowe (Lori Nelson) are hitchhiking to L.A. for a gig. They are caught skinny dipping and sentenced to work on a cotton farm for thirty days. Greedy womanizing farm owner Russ Tropp is secretly married to the judge. It's a scam to get cheap labor. The judge's son Bob Steele returns from the Navy to start working at the farm. He falls for Jane and discovers the corruption.

The best part of the movie happens in the first five minutes. It goes downhill real fast and does not bounce back. It may be exploitation but the skinny dipper uses the girls' best assets. Mamie Van Doren is the discount Marilyn Monroe and it is heavily discounted in this movie. There is no hoping for any acting excellence. It's got African antics. It's trying to get the youth market by tapping in the new fandangle Rock and Roll. Is this rocksploitation? It's all very campy.

2.0? Come on - it's better than that!

[bensonmum2 · 7/10 · 11 December 2009]

Untamed Youth is the story of a couple of sisters headed to California to make their fortunes in show business. Along the way, the pair are picked-up on a trumped-up charge and sentenced to serve 30 days hard labor on a cotton farm. The sisters aren't alone - the farm is teaming with young people who are little more than slave labor for the less than upstanding cotton plantation owner.

This early teen exploitation film is an absolute blast. The IMDb rating of 2.0 is criminally low. It's not perfect, but it is better than a 2.0 rating would indicate. I feel sorry for anyone who can't watch a movie like Untamed Youth and enjoy it for what it is. You can't take this stuff seriously. I suppose part of the reason behind the low rating is that Untamed Youth appeared on Mystery Science Theater 3000. There are far too many people out there who foolishly assume that if a movie appeared on MST3K, it must be bad. That's just not the case. An interesting (albeit predictable) plot, Mamie Van Doren, rock-n-roll, a scandalous subplot involving unmarried pregnancy (racy stuff), the train-wreck of a relationship/marriage between the judge and the plantation owner that's impossible not to "enjoy", fights, dancing, a good baddie (John Russell is excellent), the always cute Lori Nelson, Eddie Cochran (though I admit he does very little for me), a sense of fun about the whole thing - it's one cool movie!

A few other thoughts - first, Mamie can't sing. Every song she belts out sounds just like the one before. Call me crazy, but I don't think she was hired for her vocal talents. Second, what was in that dog food they were feeding the kids? Must have been something good for them - pickin' cotton all day and rock-n-rolling all night. Third, it's hard to believe that Lori Nelson made this AFTER she made Revenge of the Creature. I would have thought that movie might have done more for her career. Third, Mamie in the shower - wow!

What you got I'm not interested in seeing

[sol1218 · 5/10 · 21 June 2013]

*****SPOILERS***** Cotton-picking film about a internment camp in the deep south where the person running it Russ Tropp, John Russell, uses illegal slave and immigrant labor to get his cotton picked. Russ also fancies himself as a ladies man who forces the pretty women or teenagers working at his cotton-picking farm to put out for him in ways that's not demanded of their jobs which they get big .75 a day for doing. It's when Russ started to try to get very friendly with pretty and a bit naive, in not realizing what his plans are for her, Penny Lowe, Mamie Van Doren,that his empire in the cotton-picking business started to unravel.

The only way that Russ was able to achieves his vast power in getting slave labor for his cotton-picking farm was with the help of his lover and wife, which was kept from the public, Judge Cecilla Steele, Lurene Tuttle, who supplied him with a stream of cotton pickers. That's by her sending young people, like Penny, away for as much as six months to his cotton farm on trumped up and faked violations of the law. This was done by the local sheriff Mitch Bowers, Robert Foulk, who was being paid off by Russ to do it. It's when Judge Steele's son Bobby, Don Brunett, showed up from his stint in the US Navy and got a job working the cotton picking machine at the farm that he soon realized what a criminal and slave racket the place really was. It's then that Bobby together with Penny and her sister Jane, Lorie Nelson, who's also unturned for trumped up charges at the cotton picking farm started making trouble for Russ. That in Bobby threatening to expose to the local police and the immigration department his entire rotten corrupt cotton picking racket.

***SPOILERS*** The love sick, for that hunk of a man Russ Tropp, Judge Steele soon saw the light with her son Bobby's help in what a rotten and lowlife creep her boyfriend or secret husband Russ really is. The final nail in the coffin was when one of the cotton pickers a teenager called Baby, Yvonne Fredderson, suffered a miscarriage, was Russ Tropp the father?,and died from internal bleeding at the nearest hospital. It was terrible that Baby died but what was even worse was that Russ and his #1 henchman that drunken sop Jack Landis, Glenn Dixon, refused to provide Baby transpiration and Bobby had to carjack a company car to get her to the hospital emergency ward.

With the by now fed up cotton picking interned farmhands up to their necks with Russ' abuse of them they start the what was soon to be coined the "Revolt of the Cotton Pickers" and bring Russ Tropp's cotton picking empire to a sorry end. And besides Bobby Penny & Jane putting the skids on Russ' cotton picking operation it's his former lover and soon to be former wife, she's filing for divorce after the movie, Judge Steele that has both Russ and his stooge sheriff Bowers handcuffed and sent away to the clink. Where their soon to face the music in the many crimes that they both committed at Russ' cotton picking farm or better yet gulag.

MAMIE AT HER PEAK WITH GOOD SUPPORT!

[shepardjessica · 8/10 · 19 September 2004]

This cool (1958, not 1957) bouncy fable with Mamie V. Doren & other good actors with good rock n' roll songs and a PLOT blows away other "exploitation" films made under Warner Bros. (B-movie) department. Mamie doesn't even hog screen time with her cool sister, played by Lori Nelson (the younger sister by one year), ...great dancing by actors, great locale and set, cinematography, issues, sexy girls, corruption, cotton-pickin', cops, black and white, an amusing cook named Pinky who spouts philosophy, clean towels and bad pay....Lurene Tuttle (from PSYCHO and MA BARKER'S KILLER BROOD) as a corrupt, in-love 50 yr.old with a clean-cut son who is a good guy, AND Mamie piping out 3 songs at appropriate times (while people rock n' roll) with keeping her threads on and being sexier than ever AND INNOCENT OF ALL CHARGES.

An 8 out of 10, for sure. I'm very surprised of the rating of this film by the voters. Oh, well...See it again..it's a cool cat! I'm stunned and perplexed by the seemingly lackadaisical response by the IMDb public..seriously. Has geriatric boobism taken over the spines of folks watching a fun, (with relevant issues) in a undoubtedly exploitation flick of the late 50's, but the recurrence of good times is always prevalent in this very decent plot. The timing of the first song in first 20 minutes comes right out of nowhere, but the second song in the cotton field is like...OKAY. And these are the fun parts of this dramady that kicks it completely (as a B-movie). But, people should stand up for their tastes (or lack of). Once again, an 8 out of 10. Best performance = Mamie Van Doren. A cleverly written poem of Southwest Justice and all of the girls are beautiful in this movie (which helps when there's a real plot).

The final twists and turns of the final 1/2 hour shows why Elvis' post-Army color movies were all BAD. Anyway, I'm sure I'm babbling now, but give this one a shot; you won't be disappointed even if you're not into Mamie Van Doren or this style of analytic form about late 50's pseudo-exploit-low budget W. Bros B-movies. Try to find this movie...it's really nice.

Lighten up folks and enjoy this wacky, '50s musical fun fest

[mbhur · 7/10 · 26 October 2020]

What's with all the 2 and 3 star ratings? Are people judging this movie in comparison to Citizen Kane or The Godfather? Me, I had a blast watching this goofy mix of teen exploitation and southern prison genres.

Arresting 'vagrants' and exploiting them as free/cheap farm labor is sadly something that was quite common in rural areas of the U.S., so give this movie credit for at least touching on a serious issue. Maybe some reviewers felt it's jarring to raise a real issue and then show the young inmates partying all night in their prison barracks, which are practically co-ed, with only a thin plywood wall separating the men and women's units. But you have to take the movie in the context in which it was made. The producers knew that it was rock and roll and Mamie Van Doren's chassis that was going to bring in the drive-in movie crowd, not an earnest appeal for prison reform.

Speaking of Mamie, I don't think she's as horrible a singer as some reviewers state, and her numbers are fun in a kitschy way. Her final calypso number shot in the TV studio is pure camp magic, with that awful fake Caribbean accent. There actually was big calypso craze at the time, so lots of performers were jumping on the bandwagon, without any concern for accusations of "cultural appropriation." For lovers of early rock'n'roll this movie also gives us a rare and much appreciated glimpse of Eddie Cochran ("Summertime Blues"), whose death in a London taxi accident at only 21 is still one of the saddest of all rock musician deaths.

The scenes of the frumpy middle aged judge making out with her much younger secret husband are pretty icky, and in the end she gets off scot free for her major role in a criminal enterprise, which caused the death of a young girl. And would the nice guy cook, who baked pies and dispensed free philosophical and show biz advice, have really allowed the inmates to be served dog food? But I guess you can't think about this movie too much. You just have to go with the loony flow.

In the end, I think this is easily one of the most entertaining of all the youth "exploitation" movies of the period, in large part because the filmmakers didn't take themselves seriously. There is no preaching about the issue of juvenile delinquency, common in movies of the period. (Actually the "youth" in this movie don't seem all that young, and are hardly "untamed." They just want to party). I don't think you need MST3K to realize that a lot of this movie was meant to be taken tongue-in-cheek. So sit back, relax, and let yourself be transported back to 1957 with Mamie and the gang.

So fifties

[ericstevenson · 4/10 · 8 December 2016]

It seemed like it was at this time that movies started to become really dated. It was unbelievably easy to figure out what decade this came out. There's tons of old slang that doesn't hold up well. I admit to being unfamiliar with the laws at this time. Is it really illegal to hitchhike? Well, that was decades ago. This film features two women being sent to become cotton pickers. Like literal cotton pickers. I have heard of that phrase (especially at this time) but never really saw it being used literally.

I guess that's a plus for the film. We get lots of scenes of random singing. It does kind of have some relevance later in the film. I still get the feeling that this thing is needlessly padded. For a mundane film, it had a pretty ridiculous plot. It also moved way too slow. The sounds and music became pretty annoying quickly. I didn't understand what was going on later in the film, because I didn't care enough to pay much attention. *1/2