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13 Frightened Girls (1963)
Director: William Castle
Producer: William Castle
Writers: Otis L. Guernsey Jr. (story), Robert Dillon (screenplay)
Cast: Kathy Dunn, Murray Hamilton, Lynne Sue Moon, Hugh Marlowe
Genre: Family Adventure, Comedy, Thriller
The much maligned & often misunderstood, odd-ball film of horror director, William Castle. I'll tell you a secret, 13 Frightened Girls, is not a horror film. It has nothing to do with Castle's other horror cult classic 13 Ghost.
So what is it? It's a take on the perky teen girl movie phenomenon that was big in the early 60s, with both British born Haley Mills and American Sandra Dee. The film is about a group of diplomats' daughters who attend a special school and have a vacation coming up, which they spend in the big city. The lead girl is the daughter or an American ambassador, 16-year-old Candy Hull (Kathy Dunn). She develops a crush on her dad's friend & fellow intelligence officer Wally Sanders (Murray Hamilton). When she learns that Wally will be fired unless he can uncover some secret espionage, Candy decides to use her special privileges and starts gathering covert information from the house of the Chinese ambassador.Which puts her in harms way!
"William Castle was famous for promoting his films with gimmicks. He generated publicity by advertising for girls from 13 different countries to compete for parts as daughters of diplomats."
Family fun, teen style light drama, with cloak and dagger spy stuff included. But no horror in sight. I liked this! It was fun and reminded me of 1964's The Moon Spinners with Haley Mills. The movie held my interest as it's well made and delivers for it's intended audience.
Kathy Dunn was as good as Sandra Dee or Hayley Mills ever was. I thought she had great screen presences and was very naturalistic in her acting. I don't know why she didn't have a bigger career.
13 Frightened Girls could almost been made for Disney, except for the more bloody scenes, thanks to the master mind of William Castle.
Director: William Castle
Producer: William Castle
Writers: Otis L. Guernsey Jr. (story), Robert Dillon (screenplay)
Cast: Kathy Dunn, Murray Hamilton, Lynne Sue Moon, Hugh Marlowe
Genre: Family Adventure, Comedy, Thriller
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So what is it? It's a take on the perky teen girl movie phenomenon that was big in the early 60s, with both British born Haley Mills and American Sandra Dee. The film is about a group of diplomats' daughters who attend a special school and have a vacation coming up, which they spend in the big city. The lead girl is the daughter or an American ambassador, 16-year-old Candy Hull (Kathy Dunn). She develops a crush on her dad's friend & fellow intelligence officer Wally Sanders (Murray Hamilton). When she learns that Wally will be fired unless he can uncover some secret espionage, Candy decides to use her special privileges and starts gathering covert information from the house of the Chinese ambassador.Which puts her in harms way!
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"William Castle was famous for promoting his films with gimmicks. He generated publicity by advertising for girls from 13 different countries to compete for parts as daughters of diplomats."
Family fun, teen style light drama, with cloak and dagger spy stuff included. But no horror in sight. I liked this! It was fun and reminded me of 1964's The Moon Spinners with Haley Mills. The movie held my interest as it's well made and delivers for it's intended audience.
Kathy Dunn was as good as Sandra Dee or Hayley Mills ever was. I thought she had great screen presences and was very naturalistic in her acting. I don't know why she didn't have a bigger career.
13 Frightened Girls could almost been made for Disney, except for the more bloody scenes, thanks to the master mind of William Castle.