Mst3k – Episode 112: Untamed Youth

Another episode I wasn’t really looking forward to; the ‘troubled youth’ genre is probably my least favorite of the usual MST3k fodder, and the prospect of one of those movies with Season 1 quality riffing was not an appealing one.
Happily, I was proven wrong again. This movie is as bad and annoying as any of its genre, but the riffing is remarkably strong; enough to keep things interesting. The story focuses on two sisters who are picked up for hitchhiking and sent to a reform-farm where they work off their sentence, supposedly getting all ‘modern conveniences’ and the like. Well, it turns out the boss is corrupt (well, eventually; for the first half of the film he seems like nothing more than a typically-strict prison guard, but since he’s an authority figure in a prison movie, we intuitively know he’s evil from the get-go) and is keeping everyone as forced labor by making them pay for their amenities and stick around until they’re all paid up (in other words, they’re stuck there) while soliciting sex from the women, cutting corners on the food, and refusing medical care. It’s all horrible and nightmarish, but no one seems to mind much; in fact, they have dances every. Single. Night. This somewhat undercuts the whole ‘atrocious living conditions’ thing, but you have to have music in a teen-flick, you know. Eventually, the son of the judge who sentenced the girls (you might need to read that sentence over a few times) wises up, falls in love with one of the sisters, and together with his mom and girlfriend and the other prisoners (who are all decent people, of course) he rights the wrongs of the farm and takes over. The end.
The film’s main point of interest is Maime Van Doren, who plays one of the sisters. For those who don’t know, Maime was a low-rate sex symbol of the fifties and sixties; as typical for the time, she was a chestacular blond (she’s been described as the poor-man’s Jayne Mansfield, who was herself the poor-man’s Marilyn Monroe). Unfortunately, she wasn’t really all that pretty, and had…limited acting skills. What’s more, her extreme sexual assertiveness a) made her considerably less attractive than she might have been and b) frankly did not fit with her character (who was the younger, more naïve and innocent sister) at all. Fortunately, the other sister is played by the rather more appealing Lori Nelson (of ‘Revenge of the Creature’ fame). Lori is much more the real heroine of the film (although Maime gets top billing), and is the one who ends up with the hero.
Anyway, the film is bad, over-done, annoying, and we have to suffer through several terrible songs. This sort of thing would be done several times over MST3K’s run, but like I said, they don’t really appeal to me too much. Still, the riffing here is fine, and the film’s campiness kind of keeps things interesting.

Thoughts While Watching:

Opening: Tom has a tape-worm. Includes the great line: “Watch it, that’s the only torso I have!”

Invention Exchange: Joel; the never-light pipe. Pretty amusing. Mads; tongue puppets. Meh. The mads’ hugging celebration is funny, though.

Feature: Okay, the first non-sci-fi/horror flick.

Crow: “Hey, I hope there’s a cartoon first.”
Nice call-back to the previous episode.

Joel (as the lone guy runs around and trips a lot): “It looks like he’s playing football against Claude Rains University.”

Joel: “I think hiding from the police would be easier if this were before harvest time.”

Servo: “This is like that Stephen King story, ‘Children of the Dirt’”
(over empty fields)

Pig-like authority figures. Fat police-man tries to make girls bathing in their underwear come out while he’s looking.

By the way, they just came out of the water, but their hair is completely dry.

God, this movie about as subtle as an A-Bomb. The stuck-up judge passes an unfair sentence then blows off the rest of the trial to greet her returning son.

Crow (viewing motley farm hands, including mostly girls): “Ah, the original Dirty Dozen.”

“Monkeys?”

Yeah, what the hell DOES that mean?

Oily Boss Guy: “That’s what this place needs; entertainment.”
Joel: “I myself dabbled in ventriloquey”

My God, that sultry woman is TERRIFYING!

I know the bad guy is a brute, but the fact that it is so depressingly rare to find a guy who will stay firm with a cheating girl that I find his firmness rather refreshing.

Maime has a song. She’s not that bad (can’t say the same for the song). Assuming, that is, that it really is her singing.

Cat fight. I guess some people find these things titillating, but I just find them unpleasant. I don’t like seeing girls get hit, even if they’re the ones doing it.

Really, if they didn’t tell me the guy was shady, and apart from his slightly heavy-handed treatment, I would like him.

First Host Segment: the Greg Brady story (They think that one of the girls looks like him). I don’t know what they’re humming. Joel kind of stumbles here. I never watched ‘The Brady Bunch,’ so I don’t really get this too much.

I must say; Joel is a great comedian, but he wasn’t much of an on-screen performer; he flubbed or at least stumbled over his lines all the time. It helped that on the show he was basically just being himself, but still, it’s a little distracting.

Guy: “Bob Steel”
Crow: “Hi, I Ron Iron!”

Joel: “Now, I don’t know if you’re into weird scenes or not, but check this out.”

Again, the guy is supposed to be a jerk, but I just find his admirably strict. I mean, he is basically a prison warden; what do you expect?

Farmer: “You’ve got plenty of hands working for you.”
Joel: “Two a person.”

Joel is picking cotton!

Crow: “The stupidest crook in the world; he steals cotton.”
Another song; this one is pretty bad. I don’t know, if I were working out in the field I might listen to a song, but I would stop to clap and dance. And if it were this song, I’d shut him up with whatever farm tools were available.

Thank you! One of the overseers shut the guy up!

What-the…Maime just suddenly appeared on the ground. I guess a scene is missing here, or I missed something. At any rate, Bob Steel is her official love interest.

Crow (As they give Maime water): “Wait, that’s my motorman’s helper.”

So…I guess the warden-guy and the judge are lovers…or rather, he’s clearly stringing her along.

Now warden-guy is starting to act like a bit of a jerk here. They play the old “You mean WE will…”thing.

Oh, wait, maybe it wasn’t Maime…you know, I have a lot of trouble in these things telling people apart; the film quality and the fact that most of them are blond means that they all look alike.

Huh? Cut to dance scene…I guess they’re celebrating the end of the day’s work. Man, cotton picking must be easier than it looks, if they’ve got this kind of energy afterwards.

The sad thing is that as bad as this dancing is it’s still better than the dancing we see today. You can add dancing to art, poetry, literature, music, movies, television, and society in general (to name jsut a few) in things that have been getting steadily worse with time.

Crow: “Hey everybody, get me, I’m doing the ‘Abe Lincoln’.”

Second Host Segment: Crow tells the story of how they show what Gypsy is thinking. Her entire mid is Richard Basehart and Ram Chips. Her voice is a bit clearer and she seems more aware than she’s been up to now. The segment is mildly amusing, especially Crow.

Another song for Maime. The song sucks, of course. And she’s not as good as she was earlier. She acts like she’s in a strip-club of some sort.

Cook: “You have more than a modicum of talent, sister.”
Crow: “You mean these?”

Cook wants to put Maime on TV. Certainly that would be a better showcase for her, um, talents than radio (her primary talents will distract from her singing).

Sultry Girl: “He’ll probably give you that corny pass about becoming his ‘housekeeper.’”
Servo: “You mean the one you chomped down upon like a bass?”

Okay, it looks like the guy is actually in love with Maime’s sister (played by Lori Nelson, of ‘Revenge of the Creature’ fame). I must agree that I’d go with her over Maime too. Maime is way too aggressive and that translates in my mind to unattractiveness.

Maime is hilariously bad in this scene where she’s threatened by the dogs.

Come on, the kids are still dancing? Man, according to this movie, farm work is the easiest thing in the world.

Jerk-guy (who at last is really unpleasant) makes out with the judge again.

Judge: “What we’re doing is absolutely legal!”
Joel: “Except for the parts that aren’t.”

Joel: “I can’t go on this way, my lunch is coming…oop!”

Joel: “I didn’t mean for you to drink it, you silly woman, it’s kerosene.”

You know, I’ve got to say, I think Lori Nelson is a lot more attractive than Maime; Maime basically relies on her body rather than her face, which is always something I find unappealing.

Girl dies, turns out she was pregnant. Joel expresses regret over mocking the movie. Yeah, this is a pretty dark turn.

Guy tries to convince his judge/mother about what’s going on. She tries to avoid the conclusion, eventually admits she’s married to jerk-guy.

Bob: “She’s dead.”
Servo: “Okay, when will she be back to work?”

Gypsy comes into the theater. Weird. She spits out some cotton.

Bob: “I’d like to see you again. Lots of times.”
Joel: “And then stop abruptly, breaking your heart like a toy.”

Man, Lori Nelson is a LOT more attractive than Maime.

The hell? Bob is changing his mind right and left!

Third Host Segment: Gypsy is sick and vomiting up cotton, tophee, and paper-towels. Servo keeps suggesting new things for Gypsy to make, including the very first Tom Servo clone!

Lori goes to Judge, Judge resolves to help.

Oh, yeah, it’s a terrible, living-nightmare; I can’t understand how they could even live, THEY HAVE DANCES EVERY FRIGGIN’ NIGHT!!! WHAT KIND OF LAME-ASS PRISON-CAMP IS THIS!!!!???

Maime sings again; song sucks, her voice is not too bad, but her dancing is…yikes. You know, for a supposedly innocent, younger sister-type, she’s pretty demonstrative and assertive. Of course she is, she’s Maime Van Doren.

You know, the ‘Greg Brady’ girl is really butch and even has a deep, manly voice. It’s kind of disturbing.

Bob (crouched behind a tractor): “What is he saying?”
Servo: “He muttered something about shooting the kid behind the tractor, then I missed the rest.”

Bob wrestling with the dog is hilarious.

Again, “monkeys?”

Rest of the prisoners show up and surround bad-guys, then judge shows up, and everything is worked out nicely.

Judge: “I’ve just found out what conditions you’ve been living under.”
‘Conditions’? Again, they’re apparently good enough to allow for DANCES EVERY NIGHT!!!!!

Ends with Maime singing the worst song yet while showing off her underwear on TV. While Bob and Lori watch from their pleasant home. Have I mentioned how much more attractive Lori is than Maime? And it’s augmented here by the fact that Lori isn’t singing.

This is like two or three minutes of a god-awful song, after the entire plot of the film has been resolved. In other words, we’re wasting time!

Lori and Bob marry, and he takes over the ranch. Well, it’s a happy ending, and again, I like Lori, but it would have gone down easier without Maime’s musical number.

Ending: The weird guy in the movie; why is he there? He’s the goofy friend who always gets killed first in the haunted house. Man, that would have been great here! Joel: “The goofy guy is around to irritate the audience so they build up a lot of resentment so that nobody’s hurt when he gets offed.” It’s pretty amusing. And Letters. Meh.

Hey, this is the first time they list it as the ‘Information Club!’ Cool! It’s like when in an origin flick the hero is called by name for the first time.

Movie Quality Rating:

1. The Crawling Eye
2. Mad Monster
3. Moon Zero Two
4. The Crawling Hand
5. The Corpse Vanishes
6. Untamed Youth
7. The Slime People
8. Project Moonbase
9. Women of the Prehistoric Planet
10. Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
11. Robot Holocaust
12. Robot Monster

Conclusion: My a rather amusingly stupid movie, plus some really strong riffing propel this one into winning territory.

Final Rating: 7/10