zardoz-13 Review of Girl Gang

Girl Gang (1954)

Marijuana and Heroin Abused in this Vintage Exploitation Crime Thriller

[7 August 2011]

"Racket Girls" director Robert C. Dertano's thriller "Girl Gang" qualifies as a vintage exploitation movie about crime and narcotics. Mind you, this abysmally acted, 63-minute, black & white movie is strictly your standard dope-fiend film from fade-in to fade-out. Nevertheless, the casual use of marijuana and the extremely explicit depictions about both cooking heroin and injecting it respectively for men and women must have been controversial for its day. Producer George Weiss couldn't have received any dispensation from the Motion Picture Association of America because the still intact Production Code prohibited Hollywood from illustrating how to commit a crime, and using illegal narcotics very much constituted a crime in the 1950s. Otto Preminger didn't dare go as far out on the censorship limb as "Girl Gang" did in 1954 when he produced his own controversial Frank Sinatra epic "The Man with the Golden Arm" about heroin abuse in 1955 and altogether ignored the Production Code Seal of Approval. Otherwise, "Girl Gang" casts exploitation regular Timothy Farrell of "The Violent Years" and "The Devil's Sleep" as a two-bit crime boss who hooks teens on marijuana and/or heroin and dispatches them to crime crimes so they can fence him the goods and he can repay them with either pot or smack. "Girl Gang" does not entirely concern itself with distaff criminals. A quartet of devious dames hijacks a man's car on a lonely highway and leaves him sprawled unconscious on the pavement, but the bulk of the action follows the crime boss and his efforts to take advantage of women while they perform his dirty deeds. Eventually, the police catch up with him after the girl gang is shot-up by authorities and traced back to his hideout in an apartment complex. The subject matter contains greater historical relevance than the cinematic technique. There is a slackly staged gas station robbery toward the end of the action. Just about everything is run-of-the-mill, right down to William Thompson's cinematography.