Movie Review: High School Hellcats (1958)
Synopsis: Joyce Martin starts classes at a new school and the 16-year-old soon meets Connie, a troubled girl who leads a female gang known as the Hellcats. Joyce cautiously accepts Connie's offer to join the gang and despite being asked to steal, drink and get bad grades, as well as warnings from her new boyfriend, Mike, finds a connection with the club because she feels neglected at home. The girls' loyalties are tested however when they attend a party, Connie falls down the stairs and dies, leaving the emotionally unstable and paranoid Dolly as the club's new leader.
Who's in it? The movie stars Yvonne Lime, Brett Halsey, Jana Lund, Susanne Sidney and Rhoda Williams.
Review: I had intended on watching another movie this morning but accidentally clicked on High School Hellcats instead and since I have a limited amount of movie watching time, decided to just leave that movie on. Overall, it proved to be a reasonably happy accident.
My first thought when I began watching this movie is it would be like quite a few others from this era, serving as a precautionary tale to parents about what could happen if they don't keep an eye on their teenage daughters. After all, a neglected teenage girl might join a gang, drink, steal and worst of all, wear too much makeup and (gasp) slacks. However, as I watched the movie, I discovered it had those familiar elements while still telling an intriguing tale.
The peer pressure Joyce (Lime) faced was pretty intense. She did her best to remain a good person but each time she did, it felt as though she was signing her death warrant because Connie (Lund) clearly wasn't a girl to be messed with and Dolly (Sidney) was growing jealous of Joyce to the point it felt like she was due to snap at any minute.
The party scene in particular was surprisingly unsettling, between the various drunk guys pawing at Joyce against her wishes and the very efficient way they cleaned up after Connie's death and just abandoned the poor girl they had claimed was her friend. And this was when they all thought it was just an accident, not before accusations of murder were being thrown around.
I also thought the ending to the movie proved to be very solid, offering some suspense and action and a bit of closure as far as Joyce's relationship with her parents (Don Shelton and Viola Harris) went. A lot of movies tend to just end without tying up all the loose ends and it was both refreshing and a little surprising to see that in a film that was only about an hour long.
This is probably because I also am a dad of a soon-to-be-16-year-old, but I found I wasn't a fan of Joyce's relationship with Mike (Halsey). Yes, he was a nice guy, especially compared to her male classmates. However, she was only 16 and he was in college and that implied age difference did make the relationship seem a bit wrong, even though the movie took place in a different time and the two that portrayed the couple were both in their 20s in real life.
Final Opinion: I wasn't expecting much when I accidentally started watching this film, but it turned out to be much better than I thought with the lessons about peer pressure still withstanding the test of time. I'd recommend it as a result.
My Grade: A
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Here are some reviews of other movies from 1958:
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