The Mini-Skirt Mob

source: The Mini-Skirt Mob

Trailer—The Mini-Skirt Mob

You think THE MINI SKIRT MOB is going to be a group of hot, but mean biker girls. Not exactly. These bad girls are led by Diane McBain and part of her "mob" is her sister(Patty McCormick), who is maybe a little too good to hang with the group. About the only thing this mob straddles is a Honda...no Harleys. McBain feels she is jilted by Ross Hagen, who has just married Sherry Jackson. Baines is eaten up with jealousy and plans to terrorize the newlyweds. Among the mob is Jeremy Slate, Harry Dean Stanton, Sandra Marshall and Ronnie Rondell Jr. McBain is obviously miscast, Slate always seems to play a jerk, McCormick did well with what she was given and Jackson just can't do wrong in my eyes. I've been in love with Miss Jackson since seeing her many years ago on THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW. I can't really say this movie is a tease; I can say it is easily forgotten.

Diane McBain far from her salad days as a Warner Brother starlet heads the cast in The Mini-Skirt Mob. These women are mini-skirt wearing girls who with their men drive Hondas. McBain is a woman scorned because her guy Ross Hagen has up and left her and married Sherry Jackson. She and her current boyfriend Jeremy Slate are going to teach Hagen and Jackson a lesson that no one leaves McBain even if she is more than slightly psychotic. So throughout this whole film McBain, Slate and the gang terrorize the two newlyweds. Even with Patty McCormack who is McBain's younger and saner sister siding with Hagen and Jackson, McBain don't want to hear any of it. The sight of McBain and McCormack in their mini-skirts riding the road on those Honda may give a rise in pleasure to more than a few red blooded males in the audience. This is typical drive-in fare from the late Sixties. It's also funny as all get out because it's so bad. But the girls are something to see.

Shayne (Diane McBain) is the head roustabout and leader-in-chief of THE MINI-SKIRT MOB. Parties! Fistfights! Watusi dance-ins! Nothing is too outrageous for Shayne and her gang's reign of terror! Things get out of hand, and someone winds up dead. Will nothing stop the sinister Shayne and her band of barbarous brigands? Lovers of cheeeze-laden biker bilge rejoice! This mob delivers the schlock by the barrel full! Watch for Harry Dean Stanton as a ruffian, and Patty McCormack as Shayne's cute, non-psychopathic younger sister Edie...

I forgot how many of these drive in types were turned out in the 60's & 70's, but this is one no one could remember but the actors' families. What an embarrassment, especially for someone like Harry Dean Stanton, who turned out to be such a remarkable character actor, who in this film is the only "character" of note. Diane McBaine is miscast badly. Yet, note that she allowed her hair to get messed at least once & to have a dirt smudge, of all things(!), to be placed on her face in the final chase scene. If you are bored & need a good laugh & want to remember the old biker movies, rent this. But, if you then feel you've wasted your buck, don't say I didn't warn you!

As the title implies, this film is about mini-skirts. It is also about under-wear that is revealed by the afore-mentioned mini-skirts. There is a story, and some acting, props, etc., so perhaps the total package might qualify as a "movie". Now as far as my review, you notice that I gave it a 9 while many others are in the 2 to 4 range. This is due to high marks for honesty or better yet integrity. These guys and gals set out to film young women with short enough skirts so that a young male audience could get a glimpse of their under-pants. Since they accomplished their goal, they deserve a 9. Anything less would be un-fair. But than again, so was the rumor circulating around Van Nuys in late 1968 that a scene in this movie involved one of the females revealing she had forgotten to include panties in her costume.

Our story concerns a pack of females known as "The Mini-Skirts" and their accompanying rough riders in mountain terrain looking for trouble against an innocent trailer couple. The only things you'll appreciate from this hopelessly dated film are some nice pairs of legs and an appearance by Harry Dean Stanton as one of the rodeo rednecks. Everything else, the bad lighting, the fragmented story, leaves an awful lot to be desired, and even the title of this "biker" picture doesn't fully live up to anyone's expectations. To add even more scorching embarrasment is the opening theme song by Patty McCormack, also one of the gang members. Those who are looking hard to find this hidden cult movie will see the light as a limited cable TV offering, but remember, you get what you deserve! RATING: *

The name of the production company - whose product nowadays regularly features in Incredibly Strange film festivals - alone should be enough warning as to what to expect in this silly, unintentional parody. "The Mini-Skirts" consist of four girl bikers, the brevity of whose skirts is compensated by the length of their eyelashes - plus, it seems, an equal number of chromosome-challenged boyfriends. The plot mostly consists of them "terrorizing", with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the pack leader's ex-boyfriend because he is now on his honeymoon in a caravan with another gal. Much of it naturally is an excuse for shots of the females riding around the wilds of Arizona on their Triumph motorbikes. Hmmm. Wouldn't it be rather cold dressed like that, how long would those hair-do's last? You also get regular glimpses of panties. As Leonard Maltin says in his movie guidebook, those who like the title should like the film.