Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

GUN GIRLS

Timothy Farrell and Eleise Cameron
GUN GIRLS (1957). Writer/Director: Robert C. Dertano.

"Do you mean we went to all that trouble for a measly fourteen bucks?"

"Why you low-down tramp!"

Dora (Jacqueline Park) has fallen in with a bad crowd, most notably tough blond, Teddy (Jeanne Ferguson), who buys guns and plans a heist with her. Dora's cute boyfriend, Jimmy (Calvin Booth), who happens to be the younger brother of Dora's parole officer, begs her to stop hanging out with Teddy. Joy (Eve Brent of Fade to Black) is importuned by Teddy to help them rob the warehouse where she works, and they prove the most inept gang of robbers on the planet. Joy is pregnant by low-life Joe (Timothy Farrell) who sells the girls guns and seems to have a different woman every hour, including Trixie (Eleise Cameron), of whom he says, "things like her wash up on the beach every night." Can these girls be saved ...? Most of the "girls" in this haven't seen their teenage years in quite a while and in general the acting is so amateurish that the cast read their lines like they're little kids. Timothy Farrell, who had a similar role in Girl Gang, at least has a brusque appeal, and Jacqueline Park has some good moments during a hospital scene towards the end. Calvin Booth isn't bad but George Graham is perhaps overly earnest as his brother. Harry Keaton is a bit more professional than the others as Luke, an associate of Joe's. One of the funniest scenes out of many features a cat fight between Joy and Trixie. Amazingly the psychological explanation for gang activity actually makes sense.

Verdict: Terrible, yet strangely entertaining. **.

2 comments:

Gary R. said...

Your review definitely piqued my "guilty pleasure" interest in this film, making it sound similar to Ed Wood's work. Even Timothy Farrell is familiar from his roles in a few Wood films.

William said...

I thought Farrell looked familiar. I don't recall if I found this on youtube or Jimbo Berkey's site free-classic-movies.com, but it's out there, for better or worse.