The Prime Time (1959)

Director:

Herschell Gordon Lewis

Writers:

Robert Abel (writer)
Herschell Gordon Lewis (additional dialogue)
(more)

Release Date:

August 1959 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Teenage Girls...wise beyond their years...foolish beyond help!

Plot:

A bored young girl looking for excitement gets involved with nude modeling, drugs and a rock band. |

Plot Keywords:

Female Nudity | Independent Film

Cast

Jo Ann LeCompte	...	Jean Norton
Frank Roche	...	Mack McKeen
Ray Gronwold	...	The Beard
James Brooks	...	Tony Jackson
Maria Pavelle	...	Gloria
Karen Black	...	Betty - Painted Woman
Robert Major	...	Shorty
Ron Siden	...	Ray
Bettina Brandt	...	Sally
Betty Senter	...	Ruthie
Penny Kunard	...	Photographer
Joe Greco	...	Detective (as Joe V. Greco)
Herbert Graham	...	Luigi
Andrew Lindhoff	...	Bartender
Eileen Lindhoff	...	Jean's Mother
Chris O'Brien	...	Jean's Father
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Penny Hawkins	...	Model (uncredited)
Barry Hopkins	...	Norton (uncredited)
Dennis Kennedy	...	Dennis (uncredited)
Paul Lamaraux	...	Jackson (uncredited)
D.J. Lehto	...	Tony's Father (uncredited)

Directed by
Herschell Gordon Lewis		(as Gordon Weisenborn)

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Robert Abel		writer
Marjorie Lee-Johnson		additional dialogue
Herschell Gordon Lewis		additional dialogue (as Herschell G. Lewis)

Produced by
Irwin Joseph	....	associate producer
Herschell Gordon Lewis	....	producer (as Herschell G. Lewis)

Original Music by
Martin Rubinstein		(as Martin Rubenstein)

Cinematography by
Andrew M. Costikyan

Production Management
David F. Friedman	....	production supervisor
Charles Ticho	....	production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Gerald Richman	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Robert Henning	....	sound
George Turek	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
George E. Lussow	....	camera operator

Editorial Department
Elsie Kerbin	....	editorial supervisor

Music Department
Martin Rubinstein	....	conductor (as Martin Rubenstein)
Lester Schein	....	music coordinator

Production Companies

• Essanjay Films
• Mid-Continent Films

Distributors

• Essanjay Films (1959) (USA) (theatrical)
• Something Weird Video (SWV) (1992) (USA) (VHS)
• Something Weird Video (SWV) (2003) (USA) (video) (DVD-R)
• Astral Films (Canada)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

76 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Essanjay Films

Trivia:

Karen Black's film debut as Betty, a girl seen dancing at Luigi's, and posing on a stool for The Beard. She is not seen frolicking nude in the quarry with other teen girls because, as told by executive producer David F. Friedman, her artistic agent paid US$2,500 to have that scene's negatives destroyed before the final cut.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (2010) (V)

Soundtrack:

The Prime Time

Not great but entertaining

Director Herschel Gordon Lewis is, of course, most famous for his "gore" movies like "Blood Feast", "2000 Maniacs", and "The Wizard of Gore". While I find these films pretty overrated, his stuff outside the "gore" genre like "Year of the Yahoo" or "She Devils on Wheels" is often downright unwatchable. So I was pleasantly surprised by this entertaining JD (juvenile delinquent) movie Lewis made very early in his career. Uber-voluptuous man-eater Virginia LeCompte plays perhaps the most unconvincing "seventeen year old" in the history of cinema. She convinces her parents to let her go out with nice guy "Tony", but then borrows his car to rendezvous with her real boyfriend, an older, corrupt police detective at the home of a beatnik paint/sex offender called "the Beard" who her cop beau is shaking down. The heroine gets herself in trouble after agreeing to pose nude for "the Beard", so for some reason her would-be boyfriend/sap "Tony", "Marie", a girl who is in love with him, and all their friends rush to the rescue of this obnoxious, ridiculously overaged "juvenile" before her "virginity" (yeah, right) is jeopardized.

The plot is ridiculous, but in a very entertaining way. Like a lot of 50's JD and beatnik movies this contains a lot of laughably ripe dialgue ("You're transmittin', but I'm not receivin'--you dig, daddy-o?"). There's also some entertaining rock songs by a live band including the theme song "The Prime Time" and "Teenage Tiger" ("She's a teenage tiger/Got the devil inside her"). There's a gratuitous flashback catfight scene between the heroine and another ridiculously mature-looking "teenage" girl (they hilariously roll around on the ground in poodle skirts clawing at each other's faces). Lewis does a good (i.e. competent) job directing this film, which very much anticipates thematically the later, more famous exploitation film "Scum of the Earth" he did with David Friedman and "Color Me Blood Red", one of his later gore films about another deranged--but much more murderous--painter.

Karen Black has an early don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it part here. I don't know if I buy the story that she had nude scenes that were cut out. JD films of this era typically had a lot of exploitation elements, but they never had nudity, and this movie was made a year or two before Lewis and Friedman had gotten involved in any "nudie-cutie"-type stuff. Besides if you want to see Karen Black naked--or for that matter Karen Black in actual ROLE--you'd be much better advised to watch one of her later movies. This is not great, but it's pretty entertaining