Delinquent Daughters (1944)

Director:

Albert Herman

Writer:

Arthur St. Claire (original screenplay)

Release Date:

15 July 1944 (USA)

Genre:

Crime

Tagline:

YOUTH ON TRIAL...FOR THE SINS OF ITS PARENTS!

Plot:

A town is shocked when a high school girl commits suicide. A reporter and a cop team up to investigate and find out exactly what is going on among the youth of the town. |

Plot Keywords:

High School | Suicide | Youth | Teen Angst | Henchman

Cast

June Carlson	...	June Thompson
Fifi D'Orsay	...	Mimi
Teala Loring	...	Sally Higgins
Mary Bovard	...	Betty Smith
Margia Dean	...	Francine Van Pelt
Johnny Duncan	...	Rocky Webster
Joe Devlin	...	Detective Hanahan
Jimmy Zahner	...	Jerry Sykes (as Jimmy Zaner)
Jon Dawson	...	Nick Gordon
Frank McGlynn Sr.	...	Judge Craig (as Frank McGlynn)
Parker Gee	...	Steve Cronin
Warren Mills	...	Roy Ford
John Christian	...	Mr. Thompson
Frank Stephens	...	Mr. Webster
Floyd Criswell	...	Detective Joe Miller

Also Known As:

Accent on Crime (UK)

Runtime:

72 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #10068) | Sweden:(Banned)

Company:

American Productions Inc.

PRC Rides Again

PRC was just about the last studio on poverty row. Expectations for one of its productions were about rock bottom, and for the most part this exploitation quickie lives down to that well-earned reputation. The sets are cheap and few, the script darn near incoherent, the lighting and camera work fit for a bat's cave, and the acting wildly variable. Actually, some of the performances are pretty good-- Dawson and Loring are believable toughies, while Carlson and her swain come across as genuinely nice kids. However, D'Orsay's French accent is about as good as mine, at the same time Bovard's silliness is enough to make you reach for a stick.

One reason to check out a dead-ender like this is for its glimpse of teenagers past, that is, of how Hollywood framed teens during the stressed-out war year of 1944. Note how much of wanton teen behavior is blamed on the parents. Much of that behavior is obviously hyped for exploitation purposes (the gun battle, the stick-up), but the question of responsibility remains valid. What surprises me is that there is no mention of the war that was still raging in 1944. Youth Runs Wild, a more serious RKO teen film from that same year, shed a lot of light on how gas rationing and 24-hour factory shifts, for example, affected young people's behavior. None of that here. These youths and their parents appear to exist in an historical vacuum, and I'm not sure why. Maybe the producers thought war concerns would complicate the titillating plot. Whatever the reason, the only value to scoping out this ultra-cheapie is curiosity for curiosity's sake.