My Teenage Daughter

I am appalled at the sensationalist title of ' Teenage Bad Girl ' and its original British title is so much better. In fact the film is much better than I expected watching it by chance on a television channel. The cast is excellent, and Anna Neagle gives a very good performance indeed worrying about her daughter who has quite simply met and fallen for a wayward young man who is psychologically disturbed. Sylvia Sims and Kenneth Haigh ( the original Jimmy Porter in John Osborne's ' Look Back in Anger ' and should have been chosen for the film role in Tony Richardson's version of the groundbreaking play ) play the lovers and because of a fatal turning of events land in a terrible situation. No spoilers but the frightening scene of this situation reminded me of Pushkin's ' The Queen of Spades. ' And as a the film's soundtrack uses Tchaikovsky's music ( not too well, but not too bad either ) I thought of the Opera of the composer based on the Pushkin story. As for the film as film I am not an admirer of Herbert Wilcox but this was much better than the rest of his work. It gives a portrait of 1950's life and it rings true, except for a few critical scenes towards the end when it becomes preachy. It is much better than most films of the time that dealt with teenagers in trouble and out of their depth in coming to terms with adult judgements and demands. Watch it if you can. It is not the trash that publicity showed it to be and has a cast at its best who give their best. Highly recommended.