Untamed Youth
| Untamed Youth | |
|---|---|
 Original theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Howard W. Koch |
| Written by |
|
| Produced by | Aubrey Schenck |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Carl E. Guthrie |
| Edited by | John F. Schreyer |
| Music by | Les Baxter |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 80 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Untamed Youth is a 1957 American drama film directed by Howard W. Koch, written by John C. Higgins and Stephen Longstreet, and starring Mamie Van Doren and Lori Nelson as two starstruck sisters who are sentenced to farm labor.
Plot
Sisters Penny and Jane Lowe are arrested for hitchhiking and skinny-dipping and are sentenced to work on a rural Texas farm for a corrupt agricultural magnate named Russ Tropp. The judge, who sentenced the sisters to the farm, is dating Tropp and is unaware of the treatment of the prisoners; her son is hired to work at the farm and uncovers that a scam had been going on. Through dating the judge, Tropp ensures that all delinquents and rule breakers are ordered to work off their sentence at his farm, therefore giving him a stable amount of cheap labor and allowing him to undercut all competition he faces. The judge's son falls in love with Jane, while Penny, who performs four songs in the film, dreams of making it big in show business. One of the girls- named Baby- at one point falls ill, leaving the judge's son to hijack one of Tropp's cars to rush her to a hospital for treatment. Unfortunately, Baby ends up passing away from internal hemorraging caused by a miscarriage unknownst to everyone beforehand. The film features Eddie Cochran as Bong, one of the prisoners in the camp, who performs a song onscreen.
Cast
- Mamie Van Doren as Penny Lowe
- Lori Nelson as Jane Lowe
- John Russell as Russ Tropp
- Don Burnett as Bob Steele
- Glenn Dixon as Jack Landis
- Lurene Tuttle as Judge Cecilia Steele Tropp
- Eddie Cochran as Bong
- Yvonne Fedderson as Baby
- Jeanne Carmen as Lillibet
- Robert Foulk as Sheriff Mitch Bowers
- Wayne Taylor as Duke
- Jered Barclay as Ralph
- Valerie Reynolds as Arkie
- Lucita as Margaritia
- Matt Malinowski as Hair
Reception
According to a reviewer for the New York Times who saw the movie's premiere in 1957, Untamed Youth sought to "portray sisters who run afoul of the law and are sent to a prison farm populated almost entirely by rock 'n' roll addicts...Call it a fate almost worse than death." [1] Decades later, the film was featured on an early episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and an updated livestream version in 2021 during Joel Hodgeson's Make More MST3K campaign on Kickstarter featuring 4 generations of Tom Servo performers.[2]
References
- ^ "Untamed Youth' Full of Rock'n' Roll." New York Times. (May 11, 1957).
- ^ #MakeMoreMST3K Livestream II: UNTAMED YOUTH!, retrieved April 30, 2021
External links
Mystery Science Theater 3000
- "Mystery Science Theater 3000" Untamed Youth (TV episode 1990) at IMDb
- Episode guide: 112- Untamed Youth
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