Carry my
Yvonne Lime nka Fedderson was Baby in this film, and also Michael Landon’s besieged girlfriend in Teenage Werewolf. Producers had a type, I guess.
Tongue Puppets.
Egad!
One of my favorites from season one! Good riffing on a movie that had no sci-fi element to it at all. Nice cast here. We’ll see Mamie again in Girlstown. Lori Nelson in Revenge of the Creature. Lurene Tuttle in Clonus Horror, and Michael Emmet in a couple of Roger Corman films. It gives this movie familiar feeling. The movie is not that bad, and the movie breaks are quality.
This is the first episode in the national series which featured a crime drama. I’m not all that fond of them, as the ones they usually screened consist of greasy, loathsome people being greasy and loathsome. It can also be seen as an early Women in Prison film. But since it was released during the 1950s and distributed by a major studio, there’s none of the nudity or lesbian rape popularly associated with the subgenre.
The role for which Mamie Van Doren was cast is something of an oddity. Though no stranger to these Rebellious Teens Being Oppressed by The Man movies, she typically did sex symbol type characters in the vein of Marilyn Monroe. In this one, she’s intended to be more of a naïve ingenue. Note how shocked she is when told that the job not working in the fields offered by the Evil Ranch Boss involves being a full-service maid (nudge nudge wink wink). While possibly intended as anti-typecasting, her performance is less than convincing.
The biggest absurdity has to be the song and dance numbers which occur in the bunkhouse. You’d think that slaving away in the cotton fields under the baking Texas sun all day would sap their energy for such shenanigans.
And how naked Mamie Van Doren and Lori Nelson are when their characters are introduced.
It might have been cut for time, but it always bugs me how the cook looks like he’s knowingly pimping her to Tropp and that’s never acknowledged or resolved. Someone should’ve found a new source of dog food there at film’s end if you get my drift.
I just reached this one in my season 1 rewatch. While the movie has its, ahem, attractive points in the casting, the mix of song and dance and a surpsingly dark tale of corruption, slave labor, sexual harressment, death, and attempted murder leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I think some of the harsher riffing of later seasons might have helped this one.
Seconded. An early Season 5 placement would be choice. Having Mike Nelson visit Joel and the Bots as Russ Tropp in Space recruiting Gypsy for his Space Camp is only some of the promise. This could of had the Eegah (1962) or I Accuse My Parents (1944) treatment at arguably the height of the Comedy Central years. As it is, it’s not too shabby as a Season 1 closer and the non-Sci-Fi story is a refreshing change of pace.