Child Bride
by Harry Revier
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DVD details
Actor: Bob Bollinger, Diana Durrell, Dorothy Carrol, Shirley Mills, Warner RichmondDirector: Harry Revier
Brand: Bayside ENT Dist
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 63 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-10-26
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Alpha Video
DVD Reviews of Child Bride
DVD Review: "Well, how's it feel to be courtin' the prettiest youngin' in the community?"
Summary: 3 Stars
According to the `edjumacational' feature Child Bride (1938), there were approximately four main activities to involve yourself in if'n you were a middle aged male resident of Thunderhead Mountain, and they were (in no particular order) making moonshine, drinking moonshine, fighting, and courting underage girls, none of which holds any particular appeal to me, but hey, to each his own. Directed by Harry Revier (Son of Tarzan, The Lost City), the film stars, in her silver screen debut, Shirley Mills, who would later appear in the classic John Ford/Henry Fonda feature The Grapes of Wrath (1940) in the role of Ruthie Joad. Also appearing is Bob Bollinger, in his only feature (no surprise there), Warner Richmond (Huckleberry Finn, The Lost Jungle), and Don Barrett aka Angelo Rossitto (Freaks, The Corpse Vanishes), whom most may remember as the diminutive half of the entity known as Masterblaster from the film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).
Shirley Mills plays Jennie Colton, a young, sweet, baby faced, barefoot girl who looks all of about twelve and wears tattered dresses about two sizes too small. Jennie lives with her parents Ira and Flora on Thunderhead Mountain, where her father, in a partnership with a nasty individual named Jake Bolby, runs a hooch mill. Jennie attends classes with her best friend Freddie (Bollinger), both of whom are sweet on each other, in a one room school house with pigeons in the rafters. As I said, Jennie's a good-natured girl (and smart, too), but she's also kind of a nag, not to mention a snitch, especially when it comes to Freddie and his school work (Freddie thinks it's a bunch of hooey). Jennie's teacher, a native of the area who went away to get an education and has since returned, bristles at the common local practice of older men marrying underage girls, and when she's not teaching she's trying to rally the women in the community against such unions (in vain, I might add), which only serves to anger up the men folk. In an effort to put an end to her meddling ways, the men, with Jake as the ringleader, hold a tar and feather party, with the teacher as the guest of honor, but Ira manages to put a stop to things before they get too far. I should also mention Jake was recently forced out of his joint moonshine venture by Ira due to Jake's penchant for abusing the employees, particularly a dwarf named Angelo (Rossitto) and a simpleton named Happy. Jake, who's had his eye (both of them, to be specific) on Jennie for awhile, plots his revenge, and circumstances eventually lead up to him strong arming the Coltons into giving consent for Jennie to be his bride so he can get his pedophilic groove on...
I learned a number of things from this film including (but not limited to) the following;
1. When courting an underage girl, a rag doll is an appropriate gift.
2. Blackmail is an extremely effective way to get yourself a wife, particularly one who is under the age of consent.
3. It's difficult to study in a school where pigeons occupy the rafters due to the constant threat of being pelted with bird droppings.
4. The only decent clothes (i.e. clothes without ridiculously huge, gaping holes or tears) mountain folk seem to possess is that which they wear to weddings and funerals.
5. If a group of men donning potato sacks on their heads come calling in the middle of the night, it's best not to answer the door.
6. Not all nude bathing sequences in movies are erotic.
7. Never cross a dwarf as they can really hold a grudge.
This is one of those films from way back when that, under the guise of an educational feature, claimed its intent supposedly to illuminate a practice the general population would find deplorable (child marriages in this case), but the reality was exploitation pure and simple. You see, due to the censorship laws at the time (this was way before the ratings system was ever enacted), there were a whole lot of things you couldn't show or depict in films, particularly nekidness of any kind. One way around this was to claim your feature was an educational film. As far as Child Bride, it's probably one of the more lurid and creepier early exploitations films I've seen, but then again I really haven't seen that many. The most uncomfortable sequence for me was a lengthy and unnecessary bit involving Shirley Mills disrobing and bathing in a pond. At first it seemed like we wouldn't see much, as due to some carefully positioned leaves on a shrub, our view of her nekkid form is slightly obscured...but then we see a whole lot more as she's swimming around nekkid as can be...with the main antagonist Jake leering on from high atop a ridge. I'm unsure how old Ms. Mills was at the time this movie was made, but she definitely looked the age she portrayed, that of about twelve. Now I'm no prude, and looking at the nekkid form of another human doesn't particularly bother me (especially if that form belongs to someone like Mira Sorvino...homina homina), but gazing upon nekkidness of anyone under a certain age makes me feel uneasy. Another scene that put me off a bit was when Jake came around courting Jennie, presenting her with a rag doll as a present, and talking about how he's going to make her his wife. Talk about things that make you go eww...the funniest part in the film for me comes during a funeral of all things. It seems the recently departed died under mysterious circumstances, but most in attendance seem to have an idea who most likely helped the man along his way to the great unknown. As the minister preaches on, he makes some reference to how the mourners shouldn't fret over the soul of the recently departed, but more so for that of the person responsible, to which a number of people direct their gaze towards the person they believe responsible, all of them looking at the same individual. The acting is pretty much what you'd expect from this `throbbing drama of shackled youth', that being shoddy, overly melodramatic and just this side of amateurish, while the story seems to ramble along happily (or haplessly) from one creepy sequence to another. All in all I found this to be a curious (i.e. sleazy) bit of celluloid that was both repugnant and humorous within the brazenness of its material, and one that will appeal to the more die-hard exploitation fan, but not so much to more general audiences. I gave this film a three star rating particularly because it actually made me feel something (uncomfortable is a feeling) along with providing a few laughs while wallowing around within its own sleaze.
The picture quality on this Alpha Video DVD release is rough at times, displaying a decent amount of obvious wear and tear, but I've seen worse (particularly from Alpha). The audio comes through well enough, given the age of the feature. As far as extras there's really not a lot, except for a handful of previews for a bunch of low budget, independent films.
Cookieman108
Description of Child Bride
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