Youth Watch: Untamed Youth (1957)

Watched:  09/26/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First, I believe

Director:  Howard W. Koch

This movie exists to accidentally stumble through two important social issues, but was mostly there so we could watch Mamie Van Doren shake it in various states of (un)dress.

It's a movie capitalizing on the rising issues of juvenile delinquency and the exploitation of agricultural workers.  In this case, those workers are delinquent young adults (not teens) who get pinched by the local law for breaking minor infractions or all-together made up infractions.  Then they are pressed into service as indentured servants.

If you follow farm labor issues...  not a lot has changed.  We still pop some farmer every once in a while who has a bunkhouse full of terrified people who can't figure out how to get out of there.

And, in the 1950's, we'd invented the idea of the "teenager" as a demographic and they were driving their parents crazy with their rocking and rolling and whatnot.  And all they wanted was a hep time, daddio.  I suppose there were also eyes on beatniks who liked *jazz*, and that was probably a bit worrisome as well.

Sisters Penny (Mamie Van Doren) and Jane (Lori Nelson) are cooling off in a pond (naked of course), when the Sheriff pulls up and brings them in as "vagrants" despite the fact they're just pausing on their way to Los Angeles.  In court, the judge gives them the option of 30 days in jail or 30 days on a cotton farm.  

It's a set-up.  The girls get there and are told they'll only make $2 a day, and they'll be taking expenses out of their pay, including clothes appropriate for cotton picking.  

What is supposed to be a tough movie about exploitation instead has some rock n' roll tunes so we can watch the youths having fun.  It really looks like a good time, minus the girl who drops dead because she neglected to mention she's pregnant and is working in the sun all day.

What's impressive is how villainous the villain is.  He even dresses in all-white outfits and walks two Dobermans.  He's married the town judge in secret, and has her finding everyone guilty and sending them to his farm so he basically has no labor expenses.  He claims he'll charge everyone else $200 if anyone runs away, but it *is* kind of hard to see how this place isn't seeing their farm hands just walk away in a pre-electronic era.  

The movie is more or less there for some enterprising person to deconstruct for it's relationship with women of post-war era.  I did idly wonder if Russ Meyers watched this movie and said "I know what I want to do with my life".  

In addition to Van Doren, this movie has someone I don't know I've ever seen before, Jeanne Carmen, who I guess was good buddies with Marilyn Monroe.  She seems to be a cut above the other actors, but doesn't get much screentime.  

Apparently this movie has a cult following and was an episode of MST3K, which absolutely tracks.

It also is just cruising along and then drops a racial slur out of nowhere in the last three minutes, like we're supposed to agree that Mexicans coming into our country as agricultural workers is somehow worse than the exploitation we've just seen - and without any notion that we need to worry very much about awaits those Mexicans.  

Anyway, it's otherwise a good time.  I'm not mad at it, and I got to see how cotton harvests work.  Apparently there's a lot more shimmying than I knew.