Sixteen

I watched trailer for this and decided it couldn't be as bad as it appeared. Wrong. This is listed as "drama" I guess because there is no"waste if time" category. I may have seen this (sort of) film in a double feature at a drive-in on a date. That's because the story, the dialogue and the acting were so bad that you didn't miss anything if you only concentrated on your date. There are a ton of filler scenes, and overly long reaction shots of mostly the entire cast just staring at each other instead of saying anything. The ending is just as stupid as the rest of the film. Weren't there statutory rape laws back in the 70s?

Poor Mercedes McCambridge. She must have been starving to make this movie. I see some reviewers have "trashy"appearing to be one of a criticism that makes a movie bad for them. Trash is not necessarily bad. Terrible writing, acting, and directing make a movie bad. All three are here. I was watching as I was doing other stuff so I'm sure if I had sat down to watch a movie I would have left it. (Watched on Prime.) if ever a movie deserved a 1, this is it. If my momma was in it I would give the same rating.

Sixteen is the kind of film I used to see when I did Army Reserve training in such places as Fort Polk, Fort Stewart and Fort Knox. I guarantee that this filom did nit have a New York showing.

Meet the Irtleys a most rural Georgia family with parents Ford Rainey and Mercedes McCambridge as parents with kids John Lozier, Simone Griffeth and Buddy Foster as the kids. One fine day the family takes a trip to Valdosta to see a carnival playing there. They return minus Lozier and Griffeth both of whom have had some bitter romance happen to them.

As you can see this is based on State Fair. But all three versions of that classic were better than this film. How such veterans as Rainey, McCambridge, and Parley Baer playing a fake preacher and Maidie Norman as a neighbor got roped into this is beyond me. I can't believe that it was for a trip to rural Georgia.

For some titillation there is a nude swimming scene with Lozier and Griffeth. Hard to believe then they'replaying brother and sister. The Code was gone by then.

As for the romance t worked out better for the kids in all 3 State Fair films.

Meagerly funded and pretty trashy tale involving a dirt-poor backwoods couple coming unanticipatedly into a substantial amount of cash. They subsequently take their three kids to the state fair, where the two elder children(a boy and girl in their teens with an implied incestuous relationship)are corrupted by some shifty carnival folks. The girl is coerced into sex with a daredevil motorcycle rider(in front of an audience), and the boy becomes prey to a busty gold-digging stage dancer.

A sub-par and highly forgettable film which might be just quirky enough to interest a few fans of regional 70s exploitation cinema. Brief nudity and soft sex scenes may be missing from some prints.

Mercedes McCambridge, appearing rather uneasy here, gets a nomination for the "any old thing for a paycheck" Carradine Award. I imagine she was hard-up for fifty bucks when she signed on for this one. 4/10.

If you see on the trivia section how much this exploitation borrows from the classic semi-musical STATE FAIR, that's because I wrote that, and this...

In the 1945 classic, a hick family goes to a fair where the virginal teenage sister falls for an exciting and confident older fella, while big brother falls for a pretty woman who works as an entertainer there... at the fair...

Trade in a singer for a stripper, and a newspaperman for a motorcycle daredevil and here it is: What's basically a remake, and all the exploitation relies on the gorgeous titular SIXTEEN year old sister played by Simone Griffeth, an extremely gorgeous girl... as was Jeanne Crain, by the way...

Not bad for what anyone would consider bad with the low budget and all... Has the pace of a drive-in flick, and some nudity and sex to wake up the audience, as intended, who went for just that...

The setup has the family getting a nice payday, and the townspeople trying their best to separate them from it...

SIXTEEN did have more tiers than just the teenage blonde, but wound up with pretty much her and her only. After all, it's HER movie. Although there is more action with the stripper, trying to pry into the family money while, also like STATE FAIR, has a jealous boyfriend. Seriously, this IS a remake, no matter what it says, or doesn't say.