Claudelle Inglish

Trailer—Claudelle Inglish

source: Claudelle Inglish

. . . laments the beleaguered tenant farmer Pa of CLAUDELLE INGLISH. This story allows the always eponymous Warner Bros. Seers to warn America that our core institution of the family farm is dead, that outsiders like "Rip" are going to run down half of us with their Fat Cat Rich People Road Hog vehicles and that gun violence will rub out most of the rest of us, which is how title character Ms. English herself bites the dust. Our few survivors will be left with little more than spades to bury the dead, warn the prophetic prognosticators of Warner. These clairvoyants caution that in this End Time wanton wenches will rule the roost, eschewing marriage and home-making in favor of joy rides, lovers' lanes and general harlotry. As hellfire reigns down from Heaven Above, all decent dames will petrify as salt posts, with any surviving daughters misbehaving like Lot's.

Finally I caved & purchased this for $2 on youtoob movies; it was good. Not terribly great but an interesting, low radar jewel with decent pace; the pacing helped boost its appeal and keeps ya watching; Would like to see it few more times for free. Reviews are accurate-slightly predictable yet you still want to watch; cannot turn it off so sit back and enjoy the melodrama moment ; )

This movie is sometimes described as sleazy, but it was the advertising emphasizing the girl gone bad theme that is sleazy. She had a lot of help on the road to perdition. Constance Ford as her unhappy frustrated mother is terrific, and is a major force driving her daughter to accept gifts for her favors. Her well meaning father is no help to her or her mother, he is content being a share cropper, living in a house with no running water. Reviews rarely mention Frank Overton,and appears to be a minor character in the beginning. Starting on Broadway, he has a wonderful voice. But in this film it's his eyes that tell everything. He goes from innocuous small town shopkeeper to husband cheating with Claudel , and anguished father of a dead son. Multiple peoples bad choices lead to the destruction of 2families, not just Claudel. FYI, Ford Rainy appears in this film as well as Last Mile, as did Frank Overton, only the roles are reversed. Watch both films for some powerful acting and a lot of anguish.

A guilty pleasure, to be sure, "Claudelle Inglish" is thoroughly enjoyable pulp trash, and I say that with great affection. Actress Diane McBain mines the same territory as Caroll Baker in "Baby Doll" in a role one could easily see being played by Sue Lyon, Joey Heatherton, or Tuesday Weld. The title character becomes the belle of the ball in the backwoods of rural Georgia after her plans for her future (with fellow actor Chad Everett) get thrown under the school bus. The parents, wonderfully played by Arthur Kennedy and Constance Ford, get the chance to show their stuff once the drama boils up to its inevitable over-the-top crescendo(s). Momma wants her daughter to end up with the wealthy, smitten landowner (Claude Akins) who's land they occupy as tenant farmers. Papa is content to let Claudelle make her own decisions about love, until it becomes her favorite after-school activity, that is. And when the love-boat drifts wildly off-course, momma Constance decides to take tawdry matters into her own restless hands. There are some unintentional laughs inherent in a pine-woods potboiler such as this, and one could imagine what a director like Russ Meyer would do with such material a few years later. A film that is definitely worth your time.

In her teenage years, pretty blonde schoolgirl Diane McBain (as Claudelle Inglish) begins arousing the opposite sex. She loves handsome student Chad Everett (as Linn Varner), who looks great in close-up. But he goes off to join the Army, leaving Ms. McBain feeling lonely and unsatisfied. Due to her poor Georgia roots, McBain's sharecropper parents Arthur Kennedy and Constance Ford (as Clyde and Jessie) are asked to consider their daughter as good marriage material for older, less attractive Claude Akins (as S.T. Crawford). However, McBain prefers good looking young men like Will Hutchins (as Dennis Peasley). And, she finds a few more. Then, she goes for dads and out-of-towners. As McBain gets less discriminating, the movie gets less believable. Basically, McBain exchanges sexual favors for expensive gifts, but never obliges Mr. Akins. He is asked to consider Mama Ford as a sex date. It all leads to a rather ludicrous ending. ***** Claudelle Inglish (9/20/61) Gordon Douglas ~ Diane McBain, Arthur Kennedy, Constance Ford, Will Hutchins

Diane McBain proved she can act in this film. It is too bad it wasn't a bigger and better film. She plays a good girl who finds out playing by the rules doesn't guarantee you happiness. So she says to hell with the rules. Constance Ford is perfect as the mother who feels life has passed her by. She always excelled at tough, bitter roles. The only big disappointment for me was the harsh ending, which I won't reveal. It was all too similar to other films made in the era with its double standards of "ultimate punishment" imposed on females but never males.

Claudelle Inglish is one of those guilty pleasures that certain film fans. Based on an Erskine Caldwell novel, Diane McBain gets her first notice as the good girl turned town tramp because she gets a dear Jane letter from her boyfriend in the service. McBain in the title role is first seen as a high school girl on a bus which you will note only has white students on it. She's in love with Chad Everett, but after a night together he goes off to the military. Soon she gets a letter saying he's met another girl and he's going to marry her. Brokenhearted McBain becomes the biggest tease for miles around. She's going to punish the male of the species and have a good time doing it. Some of Warner Brothers young contract players play some of McBain's conquests, people like Everett, Will Hutchins, Robert Logan, and Robert Colbert. She's even got the older males in a tizzy like storekeeper Frank Overton who is Hutchins's father and the richest plantation owner in the county Claude Akins. In fact Akins is really gone gaga for McBain and her new tramp look. McBain's mother Constance Ford wants her to wed Akins and get all she never could with Arthur Kennedy who is one of Akins's sharecroppers. But Kennedy maintains hopes that McBain will make a good marriage with one of the boys who is getting in her pants. McBain finds Akins quite gross, but Akins after persistent refusals settles for second best. You'll have to see the film to know what that means. Claudelle Inglish even got some Oscar recognition with a nomination for costume design for a black and white film. It's also low trash, but it is deliciously low trash and a lot of people will enjoy it.

This movie premiered this evening on Turner Classic Movies and was well worth watching. The film is a very well-acted and intense emotional drama about a high school girl who is navigating the confusing territory of transforming from a girl into a woman and having her first experience with love and betrayal. Claudelle is a beautiful and innocent 17 year old girl about to graduate from high school when she is "wooed" by, and falls in love for the first time with, a handsome and seemingly sincere local boy. She trustingly gives her heart and soul and body to the young man she loves, shortly before he must leave to serve in the army. Her lover "Linn" (Chad Everett) is assigned to a military base far from home, but he promises to marry Claudelle as soon as he is done with his 2 year stretch in the service and he asks her to wait for him. Claudelle is deeply in love and promises to wait for Linn. She eagerly awaits her lover's letters, every day, until she receives one in which he tells her that he has become involved with another young woman and is going to marry his new girl -- not Claudelle. Claudelle is absolutely devastated and heartbroken. Her mother, a woman who is bitter from a life of hard work and unrealized dreams of her own, is unequipped and too narcissistic to help her daughter deal with the pain of betrayal and her first broken heart. Claudelle wants to "get even" with the lover who spurned her, just as she begins to realize the power of her own beauty and sexuality . . . and the hold which she seems to so easily have over just about every man in town -- young and old. But the pain of being betrayed and spurned is so raw that Claudelle fails to realize that she is inflicting far more pain on herself than on any of the men who she she becomes involved with -- least of all her first lover, Linn. Claudelle's father (George Kennedy) is a decent and loving man, but is unable to help his daughter deal with the raw pain of her broken heart and her self-destructive behavior -- until the end of the movie. Unfortunately, but all too typical of the mores of the time in which the story takes place, the plot is resolved by a need to kill off the "slutty wanton woman", because of the havoc she wreaks on the lives of the many weak and delusional men who want her but cannot have her -- and who cannot control their own emotions. Why is it that the promiscuous woman always has to die in these movies? (Think about Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8, Kim Novak and Bette Davis in "Of Human Bondage") Why can't the men just learn to deal with their own emotions without resorting to violence? In fairness, one sincere young man loses his life when he fights to defend Claudelle's honor (but mostly his own ego and "manhood"). And, I was really thinking and believing that Claudelle and her loving and protective father could pack up and move to a new town, and get a fresh start. But oh no. The wanton, beautiful and sexual woman always must die! Is it maybe because of all those stories were written by men? Is it because a woman who enjoys and trades on the power of her own beauty and sexuality is just too threatening to the patriarchy and must be punished? What is it? Happily, this motif begins to change with the advent of the sexual revolution in the mid- to late 1960's. I was so happy when I again saw the "The Sanpiper", recently, and observed that Elizabeth Taylor's character didn't have to end up dead -- even though she and Richard Burton thoroughly enjoyed an illicit, extramarital affair. Amen! LOL!