Girl Gang (1954)

When I saw the title "Girl Gang", I assumed I'd see a Mamie Van Doren movie imitation, with lots of dumb situations, ridiculous dialogue, and a laughable script. This movie about drug addiction in the early 50s is incredibly cheap and not funny at all.A group of high schoolers looking for fun unwisely become involved with "Joe" (Timothy Farrell) and "Doc" (Harry Keaton), a drug pusher and his doctor supplier, respectively. A few puffs of "weed" lead to addiction, robbery, murder, blackmail, prostitution, bankruptcy and just about everything else. The kids graduate from "weed" to heroin, becoming so addicted that their lives are ruined. The acting is horrible and the situations unbelievable, but for some reason the proceedings just aren't funny.I did learn a lot: a heroin injection is a "joy pop", heroin withdrawal is "the jumpin jives", a person can overdose almost fatally on "weed", and 10-minute piano solos seem to be a lot of fun. Instead of being unintentionally funny like "Reefer Madness" however, "Girl Gang" is really pretty depressing. Its frank (though poorly acted) treatment of heroin addiction is just sad. Most of the actors never appeared in another film, which tells me something. If you want to laugh, watch "Untamed Youth" or "Girls Town", but be warned that "Girl Gang" is depressing and not funny. Maybe it was meant to be that way.

A study in drug abuse like Reefer Madness, Girl Gang emphasizes the sleazy aspects associated with like-minded juveniles who find themselves corrupted by marijuana, and Heroin and delivers a mish mash of gratuitous exploitation.In an isolated apartment on the wrong side of the tracks June (Joanne Arnold) hangs out with her friends who come there to buy "weed" cigarettes, marijuana, from Joe (Timothy Farrell) who runs a business of selling Heroin to school kids and getting them addicted so they will pull crimes for him. Joe keeps a disbarred alcoholic physician Doc (Harry Keaton) on hand to help with assisting the school kids with clean injections. Joe secures a job for June with a local merchant in order to support her mounting heroin habit. June begins selling sexual favors, and when she is caught stealing money from a business Joe and Doc come forward to blackmail the man into silence. When Joe sends June and some others out to rob a local gas station, a girl gets shot and the police close in on the drug-infested apartment.It's too bad that, given the resources, the movie could not have been better. Judging by the mise-en-scene, the budget for the film looks to be about as good as it was for Detour nine years earlier. The major difference being that Detour has a strong central character and a strong story arc that carries the viewer from the opening through to the end, whereas Girl Gang never seems to focus on the right thing, first having a girl-gang robbery, which introduces us to drug dealer Joe, which leads us to June, but since June is our main character it only makes sense for us to learn about her and where she comes from and why she has ended up at Joe's apartment. Since we never know why June does what she does we have nothing to care about in the character and her downfall doesn't mean anything to us.Part of this is the charismatic screen persona of leads Tom Neal and Ann Savage in Detour. Not to take away from the relative merits of Joanne Arnold, and Timothy Farrell, but they were not A-listers nor were they strong actors, although Farrell did have a stronger presence than the eye-candy Arnold. To be honest Arnold was cast because they had a great body and this vehicle was to sell from the male gaze that was seeking cheap visual thrills from her presence on screen.Arnoldhad done the Playboy spread in 1954 and the producers must have thought they had a sure box-office with her in the movie. She's beautiful to look at but seeing her in motion in the movies it's clear she is not an actress. Her face never registers a glimmer of thought and the lack of her characters progression in the film makes it a flat gratuitous thing.

This was the cheap exploitation film of the 1950's, where a lot of things were implied but never actually said, such as prostitution, abortion and drug addiction.The film centers around a drug dealer named Joe who has a gang of girls who steal cars for him. but they are pretty much forgotten after the first act of the movie. The rest of the film involves clean cut white kids who get involved in various acts of depravity while become addicted to drugs.This is Poverty Row schlock, which was no doubt intended for... well, honestly, I'm not sure who the audience for this was. But it got made, and you can't unsee it once you've seen it...

An archetypal fifties roadshow flick – which, if you don't know, means that it showcases material too strong for regular bookings. The credits proudly announce that it was "Produced Under Personal Supervision" of exploitation maestro George Weiss, and it stars two of the genre's most recognizable veterans, Timothy Farrell and Harry Keaton. But in spite of this sterling pedigree, Girl Gang might not otherwise be very watchable. It's weighed down by long sequences in which the principals demonstrate the mechanics of shooting up heroin in dreary, drawn-out detail. Even for a 1954 audience the shock value of this dismal process must have worn off quickly, given the static presentation.But GG's lame execution is offset by its one splendid asset – the completely fabulous Joanne Arnold. Although she had face, form, and figure to spare, Miss Arnold's real appeal is the deliciously cool, laid-back vibe she brings to her character of June. You remember all those film noir leading ladies in the fifties, busy emoting all over the place? Well, Miss Arnold never allows her thesping to be tainted by any high-culture pathos. No matter how sleazy the business at hand, her bad-girl persona remains unflappably natural and unforced. She makes depravity look as easy as falling off a log – or in her case, as easy as falling into bed with the boss she's going to blackmail.There's a further aspect of GG that will endear it to gents of a certain age (geezers as old as the nostalgiste, in other words). Several of the "gang" members were actually popular pin-up models of the era: marvelous Mary Metier, prim Peggy Winters, and likable Thelma Montgomery. Now, fans may not recognize them right away in their movie get-ups. They're wearing long pencil skirts, loafers, and even bobby socks - quite a contrast to their normal working attire. Which would have been, ah, nothing at all. But this is apparently their only feature film – don't pass up this chance to see them with their clothes on!Scattered throughout the running time are some additional redemptive bits that can generate chuckles. There's the incidental music; there's Timothy Farrell's kissing technique; and best of all, there's the sex club initiation room with its flashing "occupied" light (no, I can't explain this, you've got to see it). But the real filling in this cheesecake is Joanne Arnold. And what a tasty booze, bullet, and dope-laced filling it is!