ORDER TICKETS

Arguably the least-known film in the filmography of the renowned noir master and future blacklist victim, Edward Dmytryk, is part of Columbia’s cycle of “girl gang” movies and deals with the twin menaces of teen hitchhiking and prostitution—if only implied. With a running time of just under an hour, it makes a gruesome spectacle of the blackmail ring operating behind a cross-country chain of roadside inns where hostesses lure in the unsuspecting male travelers. With elements that would become familiar components of many exploitation road movies, this unusually gritty B movie has sweater girls, violent car crashes and some early examples of Dmytryk’s low-key lighting, including a menacing interrogation that anticipates the director’s classic 1944 noir Murder, My Sweet.

A teacher (Paul Kelly) in a blackboard jungle tries to guide a group of young female delinquents back onto the straight path. This masterful B movie is essentially Angels with Dirty Faces remade with a crew of renegade girls, Rochelle Hudson playing the James Cagney role. Director Max Nosseck—one of the most fascinating figures in film history—was a German-Jewish refugee who, before arriving in the US, played a pioneering role in early German musicals and Portuguese sound cinema, and directed Buster Keaton in a French film! In America, he became a trailblazer in both Yiddish films (his 1940 Overture to Glory is a moving example) and “nudist films,” perhaps the only director in history to transition from Judaism to nudism. Nosseck’s B movies show strong auteurial touches, and he often revisited similar themes across two or three films. The best of his “girl gang” films, the enjoyable Girls Under 21 features thrillingly dynamic street scenes that transcend the limitations of its shoestring budget, breathing unexpected life and motion into Columbia’s Brooklyn backlot.