the review site with a difference since 1999
Something Weird Video presentsGirl in Trouble / A Good Time with a Bad Girl / Bad Girls Do Cry
(1954/1963/1967)
"He tolerated me. In return, I cooked his meals and cleaned his house, and yearned for the day when I could escape to somewhere better."- Judy (Tammy Clark)
Stars: Tammy Clark, Misty Ayers
Other Stars: Bill Marks, Martin Smith, Bill Page, Ray Menard, John Beck
Director: Lee Beale, Barry Mahon, Sid Melton
MPAA Rating: Not Rated for (sexuality, nudity)
Run Time: 03h:19m:02s
Release Date: 2004-07-06
Genre: cult
| Style Grade |
Substance Grade | Image Transfer Grade | Audio Transfer Grade |
Extras Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B- | C+ | B- | C+ | C |
DVD Review
It's triple feature time, and the theme, according to the cover art, is Teen Turmoil. I'm sure all of the actresses were teens at one time, though it is clear they are well past that decade in these films. The biggest link between all three is that they all prominently feature excessive amounts of voice-over narration to advance the plots, which I'm guessing is a cheap and easy way to tell a story without having to resort to things like "scenes" and "dialogue" and "characters."Girl in Trouble (1963)
01h:21m:26s
Directed by Lee Beale
According to the disclaimer that opens this film, this one promises to be "shockingly realistic" and that viewers will "gasp in amazement"; I'm no lawyer, but I suspect those claims could probably have been challenged in a court of law back in '63, but like a carnival barker's come on, you have to take it with a grain of salt and just roll with it. Innocent young farmer's daughter Judy (Tammy Clark) yearns for a taste of life in the big city (in this case New Orleans) and breaks it off with steady beau—and incredibly slow walker—Johnny in the process. What follows is a steady stream of increasingly more humiliating experiences for Judy, ranging from a lecherous stranger with fast hands to a creepy old guy running a flophouse with a convenient peephole to a shady gig modeling lingerie—and we all know what that really means.
As things go from bad to worse for our misguided heroine, director Lee Beale—a pseudonym for producer Brandon Chase (Alligator)—keeps the skin to a stylish minimum, reserving most of it to demure shots of finely carved star Clark changing outfits. The overall campiness of Girl in Trouble is tainted by a rather lengthy rape scene that goes on a little too long (maybe that was supposed to make me "gasp in amazement"), but Beale/Chase mines gold with a strip club dance number featuring a toweringly wigged Clark decked out like Kate Pierson from The B-52s.
A Good Time with a Bad Girl (1967)
59m:24s
Directed by Barry Mahon
Wedged in between two relatively skin-free titles is this explosion of bared flesh, in the story of a bored middle-aged executive on a layover in Las Vegas who ends up shagging a loose young girl who we're told "has no morals"; she does, however, giggle while reading Wonder Woman comics after a bout of wild sex. Directed by Barry Mahon, who went on to make a number of kid-friendly films in the early 1970s, works the other end of the spectrum here, in a film that promises "an adventure full of excitement" in a world of "showgirls, cocktail waitresses, and prostitutes".
From the opening credit sequence—featuring a nude woman dancing so furiously I though for a moment her breasts might actually fly off her chest—to the menáge à trois nuttiness of a swinger's party that makes up the big climax, this is an exercise in proclaiming the moralistic dangers of having a casual fling with a young girl. Production values are shoddy—voices are routinely drowned out by cars and airplanes—and in one classic moment of sloppy editing you can actually hear someone yell "Cut!"< at the end of a scene. Sandwiched in between the tacky production elements is dialogue like "this air conditioning is groovy" and a small role by familiar face John Beck (Rollerball, Audrey Rose) as an oversexed cowboy who partakes in group sex.
Bad Girls Do Cry (1954)
58m:50s
Directed by Sid Melton
Made in the moderately more repressed early 1950s, this entry in the "girl in trouble" genre follows small town girl Sally Downs (played by burlesque/stripper Misty Ayers) and her personal turmoil as she works to become a "model", which unfortunately for her really means working as a prostitute. Enter the usual low-life supporting characters, including the principal villain who looks like Bud Abbott's evil twin.
Directed by Sid Melton, better known as Alf Monroe from Green Acres, this is a rather tame vehicle designed to flaunt Ayers, but for whatever reason it remains a fairly tepid product about the pitfalls of whoredom, circa 1954. Ayers, who looks a little too hard and worldly to be playing an innocent small town girl, does get into a knock-down-drag-out with another woman at one point, but too much time is spent with bad noir dialogue and feeble attempts at a recurring gag.
Back in the early 1980s, the band Romeo Void sang that "a girl in trouble is a temporary thing", but in this set of films spanning thirteen years, it seems that maybe it isn't so temporary after all.
Rating for Style: B-
Rating for Substance: C+
Image Transfer
| One | Two | |
|---|---|---|
| Aspect Ratio | 1.66:1 - Widescreen | 1.33:1 - Full Frame |
| Original Aspect Ratio | yes | yes |
| Anamorphic | no | yes |
Image Transfer Review: In something of a pleasant surprise, Girl in Trouble and A Good Time with a Bad Girl are presented in nonanamorphic 1.66:1 widescreen, while Bad Girls Do Cry comes in 1.33:1. Overall, image quality is decent for a set of long lost black-and-white sexploitation titles, but expect plenty of nicks, scratches, and the ever-present sprocket holes. A Good Time with a Bad Girl wins the booby prize for harshest looking print of the trio.
Image Transfer Grade: B-
Audio Transfer
| Language | Remote Access | |
|---|---|---|
| Mono | English | yes |
Audio Transfer Review: All three films are presented in Dolby Digital English mono, and aside from quite a bit of hiss (especially during the low-rent antics of A Good Time with a Bad Girl), the dialogue remains mostly discernible and clear. The quality is a shade below most typical Something Weird releases, but considering that the master prints have probably not been given any kind of loving care over the years, it is to be expected.
Audio Transfer Grade: C+
Disc Extras
Full Motion menu with musicScene Access with 39 cues and remote access
3 Original Trailer(s)
2 Other Trailer(s) featuring Prowl Girls, The Diary of Knockers McCalla
1 Featurette(s)
Packaging: Amaray
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: single
Extras Review: Maybe it's because it was a triple bill, but the extras are noticeably light on this release, a thing Something Weird can't ordinarily be accused of. All that's here is the burlesque short, Misty Ayers: Striptease Goddess (06m:08s), in which the star of Bad Girls Do Cry does a rather sultry dance number, showing off her natural talents.
As usual, Something Weird has included a handful of themed trailers and a Gallery of Underground Sexploitation Movie Magazine Covers to round things out. Girl in Trouble is cut into 15 chapters, with A Good Time with a Bad Girl and Bad Girls Do Cry having 8 and 16, respectively.
Extras Grade: C
Final Comments
With this Something Weird triple bill about girls in trouble (and the occasional dude), the sage advice, according to a character in Girl in Trouble, is that "all men are alike."Trashtastic.
Rich Rosell 2004-08-11