Bad Girls Do Cry (1954)

A regular drive-in staple was the exploitation film. The plot usually involved some sweet young girl who unwittingly gets involved in some type of criminal behavior. These were morality pieces meant to show the evils of the big city and titillate the libidos of young boys and men. They ran about 65 minutes and the cast usually consisted of unknown starlets or over the hill burlesque queens.

Most of these films were just plain awful and forgettable. Since they usually had an "Adults Only" stamp or later an R rating, the very young girls they were trying to warn weren't allowed to see them. The core audience must have been lecherous old pervs who were watching only to see naked or semi-naked young girls on the screen.

In the 1950's mainstream Hollywood films were still fairly chaste. Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield jiggled across the screen, but always kept their clothes on and screen sex never got hotter than a kiss on the beach. Exploitation films went a little further, showing ladies' undies and slightly more explicit love scene. Bad Girls Do Cry is an example of such a film.

Innocent young Sally Downs (Burlesque Queen Misty Ayers, who looks neither innocent nor young) has just arrived in an undisclosed big city from an undisclosed small town. She read an ad in the newspaper for a waitress job and decides to apply, but not before taking ten minutes to strip all the way down to her bra and panties, wash her bathtub and take a bubble bath, all with no nudity. (This was probably the closes thing to porn for 1954 audiences.)

Sally gets the waitress job and one night meets Nick, a sleezeball. (We know he's a sleezeball because he wears a black hat and calls Sally "Doll") He tells Sally that he owns a modeling agency and she has just what it takes to be a top model. Sally is already tired of slinging hash and agrees to see him the next day. (OH!OH!)

Sally arrives at the modeling agency, a run down suburban bungalow, and the first thing she's asked to do is disrobe. (Even in 1954, wouldn't a big old bell be going off in any half wit's head?) This gives us another chance to watch Misty Ayers do what she does best, take off her clothes. Once Sally is stripped down to her bra and panties, Nick comes into the room, overpowers her, knocks her out and shoots her up with some kind of drug. (I'm assuming it's heroin, but she shows no signs of addiction or withdrawal throughout the entire film.)

As it turns out, the modeling agency is really a brothel (What a surprise!) and before you can say Happy Hooker, Sally is the most popular girl there. (This could be because the other girls are so butt ugly that they make Edith Massey look like Elizabeth Taylor.)

One night, Sally meets Tommy Cole, a decent young man who falls in love with her. Tommy doesn't believe that Sally belongs there and decides to sneak her out. This does not sit well with Nick and Blanche, the alcoholic madam. When Tommy tries to sneak her out, Blanche and Nick are waiting for them. They threaten them with a gun and force poor Sally back into the house.

Since Tommy tried to steal the cash cow, he is no longer welcome at the brothel. He tries to call, but Blanche hangs up on him, he sends Sally a letter and Blanche tears it up. Tommy has finally had enough and goes to the police. He tells the Police Capitan everything about Nick and Blanche's white slavery ring. As it turns out, the Police Capitan is in cahoots with our baddies and warns Nick.

Nick riggs Tommy's car. When Tommy breaks down on a deserted street, Nick chases him, corners him behind a telephone pole and shoots him dead.

Just when you think this slime is going to get away with white slavery and murder, it comes out that Tommy was the son of a very prominent civic leader, who's demanding blood for the murder of his son. The Police Capitan comes to the house and tells Nick that he killed the son of a VIP and there's no way he can cover for him now. Nick gets pissed off and kills the Police Capitan. Meanwhile, Sally overhears the entire conversation. She is so outraged at Tommy's murder that she locates a scissors in the bottom of her drawer.(Would they really have left sharp objects with in her reach?) Nick walk into the room and he's so cocky that doesn't see Sally behind him. She stabs him several times with the scissors killing him. The end.

I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this movie. First of all, I strongly suspect that it was filmed silent in 8mm or Super8 and blown up to 16mm or 35mm with the soundtrack dubbed in. The soundtrack barely matches the visuals, no character has any dialogue in close up, and the music sounds like something from another planet. The attempts at humor are lame at best. (Blanche's drunk schtick and Nick replacing Blanche's booze with milk.) The acting is dreadful. There is not one moment of a performance from any of the cast. There's a special feature on the DVD of one of Misty Ayers' burlesque routines. It's kind of sad because it shows that the lady really did have talent.

Bad Girls Do Cry was directed by Sid Melton, who played Uncle Charley on Make Room For Daddy, Alf Monroe on Green Acres and Sophia's husband Sal in flashbacks on Golden Girls. I could excuse a know nothing nobody for making a dud like this, but Melton was a Hollywood professional. What was he thinking?

Bad Girls Do Cry is available fro Something Weird Video. The disc includes two other exploitation films, Girl in Trouble and Good Time With a Bad Girl.