Girls Town

Surprisingly watchable for an MST3K movie. Mike and the 'bots add their usual hilarious commentary, but you could easily watch it on its own.

More sympathetic to the teens of the time than I expected, with Silver getting some good lines in - though that doesn't stop it from having a bunch of the usual cliches, nor does it make Paul Anka... work.

"This pad spooks me." The Mame-ster is an absolute delight in this one, especially in the first half, with a chip on her shoulder the size of Stonehenge. Admittedly it does get a bit tedious when it decides to turn virtuous towards the end (but hey, it was the 50s). Casting must've been by the same guys who gave us Beach Blanket Bingo. So you get Mel Torme as a misshapen lump doing his impression of a cool guy; and then there's Paul Anka, looking (and singing) like Dustin Hoffman's nephew.

Not as bad as I'd heard. Mamie Van Doren is pretty entertaining throughout, and the movie has a sort of charm to it up until the end (though the ending is exactly what you'd expect for the 1950s). Who knew Paul Anka's voice could be so moving?

Someone invent a time machine so I can go back and plow the crap out of 1959 Mamie Van Doren.

An unusually slick and cheery J.D. movie, with some good songs, cute girls, and an engagingly loopy plot. Not really good, but not bad.

Far from the worst film to be featured on MST3K, but also not the best. The plot is told in the most uninteresting of ways and it doesn't even feature Girls Town that much! Worth it for the overdose of 50s slang terms in every line, but also not worth it for repeatedly being subjected to Paul Anka's singing.

Terrible.

It's like a young Russ Meyer got hired by the Catholic Church to make the Magdelene Laundries hip, daddy-o. Surprisingly not-awful for a movie that tries to sell Mel Tormé as a badass greaser.

Mst3k: 8/10