Deliciously one-dimensional characters, cliched riding, and outrageously bad acting make this one a pleasure and a must-see for bad film connoisseurs. It's one of those films that you can't believe actually got released during the alleged golden era of Hollywood, especially by one of the a Studios of the 1950s, Columbia. I have just added Helen Walker to my list of the great evil women of movie history with her performance as the headmistress of this troubled rich girls school where it seems that wealthy parents who can't do anything with their troubled daughters send them simply to get them out of their hair. There, they fall into the hands of Walker's Miss Dixon, a hideous combination of Mrs. Danvers, Nurse Ratched, Nurse Diesel the Wicked Witch of the West, and the role of the hideous matriarch that Mary Morris played in the first period melodrama "Double Door". as we learn, she pretty much schemed and blackmailed her way into her current position, using the school owner's addiction and murder of his wife against him.
Her days appear to be numbered the moment she hires Dr. Ross Elliott to come in even though he has apparently lost his medical license. She feels she can use that as a way to get her wayon anyting and everything going on in the school which includes apparently hiding the heiress to a fortune which Elliott suspect has led to foul play. The sweet looking Susan Morrow plays the subject of Walker's evil schemes, said to have amnesia but swearing that she is not the alleged wealthy heiress. There are insinuations that anybody who does not do Walker's bidding end up tortured, and many of the aggressive students appear to be more than happy to oblige to be the ones doing the abusing.
Also among the students and recognizable are Beverly Garland, Mara Corday and Joyce Jameson, with Garland standing out in a highly campy performance as an aggressive hateful students who seems to despise all men. There are times when this goes totally off-center, becoming convoluted and messy, and the ending is not at all what I hoped for concerning the evil character that Walker played. But it's a film that I will certainly watch over when I need some great laughs especially with some of the outrageous lines that are written in the script.
Her days appear to be numbered the moment she hires Dr. Ross Elliott to come in even though he has apparently lost his medical license. She feels she can use that as a way to get her wayon anyting and everything going on in the school which includes apparently hiding the heiress to a fortune which Elliott suspect has led to foul play. The sweet looking Susan Morrow plays the subject of Walker's evil schemes, said to have amnesia but swearing that she is not the alleged wealthy heiress. There are insinuations that anybody who does not do Walker's bidding end up tortured, and many of the aggressive students appear to be more than happy to oblige to be the ones doing the abusing.
Also among the students and recognizable are Beverly Garland, Mara Corday and Joyce Jameson, with Garland standing out in a highly campy performance as an aggressive hateful students who seems to despise all men. There are times when this goes totally off-center, becoming convoluted and messy, and the ending is not at all what I hoped for concerning the evil character that Walker played. But it's a film that I will certainly watch over when I need some great laughs especially with some of the outrageous lines that are written in the script.