Child Bride

Director: Harry J. Revier, Cast: Shirley Mills, Bob Bollinger, Warner Richmond, Angelo Rossitto.

1930's "exploitation" film about the backwoods/backward people of the Ozarks where it is considered acceptable for much older men to marry young adolescent girls. The local school teacher,with the help of her assistant D.A. boyfriend, are trying to have this practice stopped. Anyhow, young Jenny(played by Shirley Mills) is forced to marry much older Jake(played by Warner Richmond). Without giving away the story, Jake blackmails Jenny's mom into letting him wed her daughter.

The way the hillbillies are portrayed in this film is amusing. I got a kick out of the dilapidated old schoolhouse with pigeons on the rafters! Other reviewers have made comments about the nudie skinny dipping scene. There is nothing about it that should trouble anyone. There is a huge difference between pornography and nudity. Yes Shirley Mills was just twelve years old in this movie but there absolutely nothing pornographic in this film. She is simply skinny dipping. It does show her nude going into the water but it is brief and in no way distasteful. The swimming scene alone would not have made this an exploitation film. It is the overall content that makes it so. The idea of old men trying to marry little girls.

The is actually a rather interesting film and the acting although not "Gone With the Wind" material is actually alright. It certainly has a uniqueness about it that keeps the viewer interested in spite of its low budget. This is the only film for most of the actors. Warner Richmond has been in numerous films and Shirley Mills did about a handful of other films including The Grapes of Wrath. I might also add that Angelo Rossitto(the midget) has had a very long career in Hollywood. He has been in movies into the 1980's including Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. He was in Tod Browining's classic Freaks from 1932.

I just thought I should share this amazing story with everyone. In 1938 or so... my mother happened upon the set of this movie and thought it was a ghost town... they used to go back to Sonora area (columbia) and try to find it (the set) and even look 'old timers' to interview, trying to find this ghost town. Well,,, the only thing they knew was that the schools name was 'Thunderhead Mountain School' ... Thanks to one of the reviews here, a search returned the name of that school and I was able to find the date (1938) and the location of its filming (Sonora area). A 72 year old mystery was solved... my mother was only 12 when they found that movie set.... now shes 83... She was so excited to here that the mystery was finally solved... thanks to one of your reviews mentioning the school in this movie... thanks again AK

This low-budget independent film is considered one of the most controversial accomplishments of all time, as it portrayed the nakedness of a 12-year-old girl in a sexual context back in the 1930s. However, I think calling it a "sexploitation" movie is an unfounded exaggeration. The scene is neither explicit nor tasteless, nor does it depict or insinuate the act of sex. It's just plain skinny-dipping in a pond. The film is about a rural environment where it is customary for parents to marry their minor daughters with significantly older men. The girl who escaped from there, later returns as a teacher and tries to stop this tradition. Whether the intention of the author was really to criticize this ill custom and draw public attention to it, or whether he simply used it as an excuse to make for that time shocking film, remains to be speculated. Interestingly, most of the actors in this film never filmed anything else. Exceptions are George Morrell and Warner Richmond with rich filmographies, Shirley Mills with a few more roles, and Angelo Rossitto, whose height of only 88 centimeters brought him a bunch of interesting roles, from the cult "Freaks" (1932) by Tod Browning to the role of The Master in the famous Master Blaster tandem from "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" (1985). The movie does not deserve any praise for its quality, but it's not badly done either. Certainly, it is worth a look as a curiosity.

6/10

This is one of the strangest classic exploitation movies ever made, ranking with Chained For Life and The Terror of Tiny Town for sheer weirdness. The cast -- largely comprised of unknowns and non-actors, but also including popular Angelo Rossitto (aka Don Barrett) the dwarf -- portray a community of lascivious, drunken, lawless, moonshine-making Ozark hillbillies (in California, with Eucalyptus trees much in evidence) who want to marry little girls. Meanwhile, a schoolmarm, who has returned to her native hills to teach her fellow "mountain people" how to read, struggles against the evil custom of child marriage in a state that has, as yet, not enacted a minimum-age marriage law.

Most of the actors are not trained, but the central family of mother (Dorothy Carrol), father (George Humphreys), and daughter (Shirley Mills) are riveting in their realistic depiction of dirt-poor farm life. Mills' diction and gestures in this film were obviously influenced by the acting style of her famous contemporary, Shirley Temple, a fact that helped her project sincere distress during the more violent and emotionally wrenching scenes. Given her role here, and the naturalness with which she plays it, it is no wonder that Mills was later tapped to play Ruthie Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath." Angelo Rossitto, as a moonshine stiller, is at his athletic best here, clambering up and down the "Republic rocks" and engaging in an intense fight scene with a full-sized heavy, thus bringing his usual liveliness to an unusual role.

There is quite a bit of animal acting in this film, as it is set on a farm. The early morning scene in which Mills goes out to feed the pigs and gets into the pen to "rescue" a piglet, is very true to life, as is her family's stern response to what might seem to modern eyes as a cute child-in-the-mud scene: Pigs, especially sows with piglets, can be dangerous if angered, and the film-makers knew that well enough that they did not actually place Mills in confrontation with the sow; a couple of jump-cuts show us what happened. I also enjoyed the uncredited Alsatian Police Dog who played Ritz, a well-trained canine actor with dark fur and long ears who, unless my eyes deceive me, was a Rin-Tin-Tin relative or understudy. There are also a couple of very much UNtrained milk goats in this film -- a white Saanen and a black Alpine -- who stand nicely to be milked (obviously the role for which they were cast), but provide some over-the-top emoting during a funeral march, as they react with panic and a determination to buck, butt, or escape whenever the dog Ritz (who is very docile) gets near them.

"Child Bride" carries an explicit moral message -- "These child-marriages must be stopped!" -- but, like most exploitation films, it quickly subverts its own message, in this case with extended scenes of child nudity, as barely pubescent Shirley Mills frolics in a clear mountain pool with her German Shepherd dog. Despite the child nudity, which i frankly found disturbing as it went on so long and showed so many prurient repeat shots of Mills' backside underwater, there is some charm to this story, and enough plot twists to make it interesting. I think this is a movie that every fan of the obscure and off-beat, every fan of B-movies, and certainly every exploitation fan, will want to see.

A little movie about a serious topic. Child brides and the old men that marry them. We are not talking about 18 and 19 year old girls we are talking about 12 year old girls. The story centers around a schoolteacher who is trying to get this practice banned and young girl who some pervert who is already dating her mom got his eyes on and some local town folk who are either with the teacher or not. They are so threatened by her that one night, in the fashion of a KKK raid they steal her away in the night. All wearing hoddies to hide their faces they drag her off to some rock were lord knows what they were going to do. If she was not rescued we know it was something horrific because her clothes were torn almost all off. To me this scene is much more controversial then the 12 year old who tells her friend he can't look at her without any clothes on anymore when they go swimming. So she goes ahead and takes a dip with her dog. While the friends closes his eyes It was a very sweet scene, until we notice that leach who is fooling around with her mother is watching her every move. It would of been less realistic for her to be wearing a bathing suit at her age where they live at. In any case the moms boyfriend cooks up a blackmailing scheme so the mother will have to force her daughter to marry him. I am not going to spoil it for you because it is pivotal part of movie. It was also very touching about her little friend who was very upset and crying over her upcoming marriage. I felt so bad for him. He asks for help but the teacher can't offer any. It was looking pretty grim for all involved. But the teachers boyfriend comes to show her the law about child brides have been changed. And it was enacted 3 day prior so the marriage would be null. But the hubby is getting ready for the big night and it really doesn't matter about the new law. Something you we see why at the end. All in all it was a good little move. The lighting was bad. But other then that I say take a look if you can find it. I have Roku and one of the channels has all of these old movies. So that is how I got to see it.