Sometimes you need to skip the Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary and just enjoy an Edward D. Wood Jr scripted exploration of white female teenage juvenile delinquency on its own beautiful merits. This is The Violent Years (1956), which is a remarkable insight into what happens to teenage girls who are not given the right attention by their neglectful parents, who are given wealthy gifts rather than quality time, or as the mother character bemoans at one point, “Expensive dresses instead of caresses”. These unloved teenage outlaws hit the road as a gang, wearing baseball jackets, button-up shirts, and baggy jeans, holding up petrol stations and couples in their cars, kicking back their loot to a high class suburban lady gangster, who then leads them further astray in the profitable businesses of wrecking schools on behalf of communist interests (?)! Led by Jean Moorhead as Paula Parkins, the leader of the gang, who acts prim and proper to her parents while raising hell on the streets (“What do you take me for, a stupe?”, she snarls at one point). Composed of 1950s moralising in sanctifying speeches and riotous, energetic scenes of young women acting tough, I had a ball watching this movie. Scripted by Ed Wood but directed by William Morgan, it’s the type of black-and-white B-movie that would no doubt be an influence or a favourite of John Waters in its teen movie criminal histrionics and wacky plot twists (particularly its unfairly judgemental finale). The American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) organised a quality remastered version of the movie, which can be streamed on Tubi if you’re keen – it’s only 65 minutes. There’s also lots of other AGFA titles on Tubi to explore (Effects, The Zodiac Killer, The Sword And The Claw, etc). Recommended.
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