Girl on a Chain Gang

If there were ever a contest of the worst film of all time, the most wasted use of celluloid in the history of film, this item would qualify hands down. I saw it by chance in 1967 in Reno, Nevada, with two other patrons who were obviously sleeping off their binge from the night before. I should have walked out after the first few minutes, but this is one of those "films" (I hate to use that word to describe this fiasco) that is so bad, I wanted to see just how bad it got. I suppose the worst part is where the leading lady, the "girl," after being raped by her jailer, is taken to court and pleads her innocence before a Southern judge. This "film" is an absolute insult to the people of the South and to anyone having any taste whatsoever. I noticed also that it's not even listed in Leonard Maltin's Movie Review book. The only reason that I'm writing this much about it is that in order to leave the one line summary (above), I have to write ten lines here.

The inspiration for this Jerry Gross exploitation movie was most likely the real life murders of 3 civil rights workers in 1964 Mississippi. In real life, the victims were male. In the 1965 film, the trio of two men, one white, one black and one attractive white girl played by Julie Ange are stopped and put through hell by a group of crazy redneck "law men." The guys are beaten mercilessly and the girl is raped in her jail cell by the sheriff (William C. Watson). Even though it's a crude, grisly exploitation movie, there's a true-to-life tone. I've been to Mississippi, one of the most backwards states in the USA, and found many of the smaller town folks were stupid, aggressive and racist, exactly as depicted in the movie. William Watson went on to a busy career in TV and films. Julie Ange and Arlene Farber (playing a very sexy "friend" of the sheriff) also starred in Gross' unbelievable epic of teenage angst, Teenage Mother.

Three young folks - one white man, one black man, and one white woman - drive to the small Southern town of Carsons' Landing to assist in voter registration. However, they are soon victimized - over and over and over again - by the crooked locals, with the sheriff (character actor William Watson, in his film debut) proving to be the absolute worst, a repugnant, racist, brutal piece of work.

Grindhouse cinema legend Jerry Gross made his own directing debut with this "Southern-fried" (although actually filmed in Long Island!) exploitation-drama. It IS pretty heavy-handed, with most of the antagonists coming off as thoroughly evil stereotypes. The others are otherwise morally compromised in some way and thus easy for the sheriff to manipulate into doing his bidding. These cretins put our victims through so much Hell that it would be hard not to feel *something*, for sure. From start to finish, the white woman (the attractive Julie Ange, whose only other film credit was "Teenage Mother") is treated to what her captors have the gall to consider "justice", complete with a total joke of a "trial".

The ending is indeed a little too "neat" and sudden, but I admit that I kept watching this bit of indie trash just to see what other degrading things Gross could come up with. The acting is adequate through and through, although it's worth nothing that Watson had a solid career after this, also appearing in things like "In the Heat of the Night", "Lawman", and "The Mack". Arlene Farber, who plays the sheriffs' trampy gal pal, was also in "Teenage Mother" and went on to appear in the trash classic "I Drink Your Blood" and the mainstream hit "The French Connection".

As has been said, Gross was likely inspired by the real-life murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi the previous year, the same incident that was recounted in "Mississippi Burning" over 20 years later. He saw the potential in the incident for a potent drive-in movie story, and delivers a fair amount of sordid, depressing atmosphere with this little item.

Six out of 10.

While on a secret trip in the Deep South to assist in voter registration two men by the names of "Ted Branch" (Ron Segal) and "Audie Dixon" (uncredited) along with one woman, "Jean Rollins" (Julie Ange) are pulled over by two redneck deputies for speeding. Not content to simply give them a ticket and allow them to drive off, the two deputies then proceed to take them to the city jail. It's there that the 3 travelers meet the local sheriff, "Sonny Lew Wymer" (William Watson) who happens to be both corrupt and extremely vicious as well. Anyway, after shaking them down for $150 he eventually allows them to leave. Unfortunately, rather than leaving town they decide to stop off at a local tavern and have a drink first. Big mistake. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that I found this film to still be somewhat entertaining in spite of its obvious flaws. Admittedly, the plot was heavy-handed and the characters were a bit over-the-top. No question about it. Additionally, I thought the ending was too abrupt and left much to be desired as well. Even so, many of us who lived in the United States during this particular time can probably admit that, as a nation, this wasn't one of our finest hours. And it's the memory of this that gave this film such a haunting charm. At least it did for me. Likewise, having two attractive actresses like Arlene Farber (as "Nellie") and the aforementioned Julie Ange certainly didn't hurt either. Be that as it may, I liked this particular film and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.