Problem Girls (1953)

Brilliant and touching

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Looks like Columbia Pictures was reaching for an exploitation version of Caged (1950), replete with troubled patients, a reformer, and sadistic matrons. What Columbia got instead was a bumbling exploitation flick, replete with chorus-girl patients, wooden dialog, and over-the-top complications. Oh yes, for us guys, it seems all the girls, weird or not, are unusually fetching, straight from Hollywood and Vine. Plot-wise it seems that straight-arrow Dr. Page (Elliott) takes a job at a girls reform institution, but soon finds the place is more like a Nazi prison camp, run by scheming witch Dixon (Walker). Despite believability, I guess the girls' wealthy parents don't care. Then too, the faculty features such professional types as an elderly professor who gleefully chopped up his wife with a meat cleaver, while discipline takes the form of hanging the girls by wrists under a stream of running water. The sheer steadfastness of the movie makers' approach comes close to camp, but somehow I couldn't even chuckle.Too bad the tragic Helen Walker had to settle for this mess. She was so good at scheming, e.g. Nightmare Alley (1947). On the downgrade, she still shows her stuff in a thankless role. Meanwhile, that familiar utility actor, Ross Elliott, gets a colorless lead role, but still does his best. Also, can't help noticing that the queen of scream, Beverly Garland (Nancy) gets to unload a real lung blaster. And catch that abrupt ending, like they suddenly ran out of film. Anyway, the screenplay's a mess so unless you're a Helen Walker fan like me, skip it.

As the tagline for the film say, "Nothing can tame them, scandal can't shame them!". This and the scandalous posted currently linked to this IMDb page pretty much say it all for this movie...or is there more? Could this film, marketed as an exploitation flick, actually be any good?!Dr. John Page has just been hired out of graduate school...and on the surface his job would seem like a great one. After all, he's been hired to work at an exclusive girls school. However, this is not your typical, ordinary girls school. Despite their coming from rich families, many of the residents seem more like head cases-- schizophrenics, nymphomaniacs, pyros and the like--all young ladies their rich families would rather just forget! But it is much worse...one of the girls is part of a very strange and elaborate plot. But any time the doctor tries to do his job and behave like a professional, the headmistress seems to get in the way--like there's something she's hiding. But what?!This is in some ways an exploitation film--with the ladies undergoing torture and mistreatment by employees of the 'school' that seem more like matrons from the prison film "Caged"! But the plot is much more complex and interesting...making it a truly unusual film. While the plot has a few minor problems, the overall film is surprisingly good despite all the icky aspects of the picture.

"John Page" (Ross Elliott) happens to be a psychiatrist who has just returned from World War 2 and is looking for a job long enough for his credentials to be validated by the state of California. He is hired to work as a psychologist for the "Manning School for Girls" which is essentially a reform school for mentally disturbed girls from wealthy families. But the students aren't his only problem as he also has to contend with several sadistic members of the faculty as well. Along with that, he accidentally stumbles upon a bizarre mystery that the faculty wants to keep hidden at all costs. The more he uncovers the more hostile the faculty gets. At any rate, rather than reveal any more of the plot I will just say that this was a decent film for the most part. Although the acting seemed a bit sterile there were enough surprises to keep my attention. It's not a long movie (only 71 minutes) but the director (Ewald André Dupont) manages to make the most of it all the same. In short, this was an average movie from the 50's which might be worth a look if you're interested in films from this time period or have a little time to kill.

Problem Girls (1953) * 1/2 (out of 4) Incredibly stupid mystery from Columbia about a new teacher (Ross Elliott) at a school for rich, troubled girls who comes across what could be a murder case. It seems his co-teachers might have several secrets about the identity of a certain student. The dialogue in this thing is so incredibly bad that I'd almost recommend the movie just so people could hear it. This film falls in the range of stuff like Reefer Madness with the exception that this film seems to have had a pretty good budget. Being a studio film the production is a tad bit higher than you'd expect for this type of film but the performances are so bad, so over the top and campy that it's impossible to take anything here serious.