best movie i've ever seen.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Looks like Columbia Pictures was reaching for an exploitation version of Caged (1950), replete with troubled patients, a reformer, and sadistic matrons. What Columbia got instead was a bumbling exploitation flick, replete with chorus-girl patients, wooden dialog, and over-the-top complications. Oh yes, for us guys, it seems all the girls, weird or not, are unusually fetching, straight from Hollywood and Vine. Plot-wise it seems that straight-arrow Dr. Page (Elliott) takes a job at a girls reform institution, but soon finds the place is more like a Nazi prison camp, run by scheming witch Dixon (Walker). Despite believability, I guess the girls' wealthy parents don't care. Then too, the faculty features such professional types as an elderly professor who gleefully chopped up his wife with a meat cleaver, while discipline takes the form of hanging the girls by wrists under a stream of running water. The sheer steadfastness of the movie makers' approach comes close to camp, but somehow I couldn't even chuckle.Too bad the tragic Helen Walker had to settle for this mess. She was so good at scheming, e.g. Nightmare Alley (1947). On the downgrade, she still shows her stuff in a thankless role. Meanwhile, that familiar utility actor, Ross Elliott, gets a colorless lead role, but still does his best. Also, can't help noticing that the queen of scream, Beverly Garland (Nancy) gets to unload a real lung blaster. And catch that abrupt ending, like they suddenly ran out of film. Anyway, the screenplay's a mess so unless you're a Helen Walker fan like me, skip it.

Problem Girls is a really bad film. Shot on a dental floss type budget with pedestrian direction it has one saving grace. The incredibly florid and campy performance of Helen Walker as the hard bitten, hardhearted mistress of a school for Problem Girls. Walker whose best career years were behind her knew this was a turkey and she gobbled through her role like Thanksgiving was coming up. Nurse Ratched had nothing on this woman who runs a school like a prison with generous doses of sadism and a corrupt staff of whom she has something on each one.But our story here concerns Walker planning something truly sinister for amnesia patient Susan Morrow and in the process getting her hands on a fortune. To find out what you watch the film for. But fans of bad Ed Wood or Arch Hall films will love Walker in the lead. Even us more discerning fans will appreciate what she does to save a turkey.

"John Page" (Ross Elliott) happens to be a psychiatrist who has just returned from World War 2 and is looking for a job long enough for his credentials to be validated by the state of California. He is hired to work as a psychologist for the "Manning School for Girls" which is essentially a reform school for mentally disturbed girls from wealthy families. But the students aren't his only problem as he also has to contend with several sadistic members of the faculty as well. Along with that, he accidentally stumbles upon a bizarre mystery that the faculty wants to keep hidden at all costs. The more he uncovers the more hostile the faculty gets. At any rate, rather than reveal any more of the plot I will just say that this was a decent film for the most part. Although the acting seemed a bit sterile there were enough surprises to keep my attention. It's not a long movie (only 71 minutes) but the director (Ewald André Dupont) manages to make the most of it all the same. In short, this was an average movie from the 50's which might be worth a look if you're interested in films from this time period or have a little time to kill.

Problem Girls (1953) * 1/2 (out of 4) Incredibly stupid mystery from Columbia about a new teacher (Ross Elliott) at a school for rich, troubled girls who comes across what could be a murder case. It seems his co-teachers might have several secrets about the identity of a certain student. The dialogue in this thing is so incredibly bad that I'd almost recommend the movie just so people could hear it. This film falls in the range of stuff like Reefer Madness with the exception that this film seems to have had a pretty good budget. Being a studio film the production is a tad bit higher than you'd expect for this type of film but the performances are so bad, so over the top and campy that it's impossible to take anything here serious.