13 Frightened Girls! (1963)

Director:

William Castle

Writers:

Otis L. Guernsey Jr. (story)
Robert Dillon (writer)

Release Date:

July 1963 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Thriller

Tagline:

13 TERRIFIED TEENAGERS ON THE RUN! (original print ad - all caps)

Plot:

Thirteen girls in a Swiss boarding school, particularly one Candace Hull ("Kitten", "Candy"), stir up...

Plot Keywords:

Spy | Teen | Independent Film | Number In Title

Cast

Murray Hamilton	...	Wally Sanders
Kathy Dunn	...	Candace 'Candy' Hull
Lynne Sue Moon	...	Mai-Ling - China
Joyce Taylor	...	Soldier
Hugh Marlowe	...	John Hull
Khigh Dhiegh	...	Kang
Charlie Briggs	...	Mike aka Spider - Chauffeur
Norma Varden	...	Miss Pittford
Garth Benton	...	Peter Van Hagen
María Cristina Servera	...	Argentina
Janet Mary Prance	...	Australia
Penny Anne Mills	...	Canada
Alexandra Bastedo	...	Alex - England
Ariane Glaser	...	France
Ilona Schütze	...	Ilona - Germany

Also Known As:

The Candy Web

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Pathécolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved | USA:Passed | Finland:(Banned) (1963)

Filming Locations:

Big Bear Lake, California, USA

Company:

William Castle Productions

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: After an enemy agent slips pills into Candy's ginger ale, there is the clinking of ice, but no cubes in the glass.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Out of this World Super Shock Show (2007) (V)

Strange and obscure William Castle comedy

This strange and obscure William Castle movie is kind of a cross between "The Trouble with Angels" and "The Man from Uncle", but was actually made before either. It's about a group of international schoolgirls who get involved in espionage and international intrigue--mainly an American diplomats daughter "Candy" (Kathy Dunn), who is trying to save the job of an older male agent she is love with (Murray Hamilton, later the mayor in "Jaws")and gets the opportunity to do so when, while visiting a Red Chinese friend, she stumbles across a sinister international espionage plot.

Although this is somewhat similar to Castle's later teen-oriented film "I Saw What You Did", it is much more of a comedy than a thriller. Fortunately, the comedy often works pretty well. At one point the heroine is reading in a book how female spies can use their seductive wiles to bring down governments and destroy countries. "I'll try it!" she says enthusiastically. There are also a a lot throwaway jokes like where the classmates ask the Swedish girl who's taking her to the prom. "Nobody," she says in her best Greta Garbo, "I want to be alone." As an agent "Candy" is known as "Kitten", courtesy of her pet cat, and the funniest scene in the movie perhaps is a parody of a Hollywood-style montage where the spreading influence of the secret agent "Kitten" is represented by Candy's cute white kitten trotting around superimposed over a map of Europe and various European landmarks.

I'm not sure who this movie was aimed at originally. It's a little too clever and violent at times for a kiddie movie. It could have been aimed at teens, but since this was kind of in between the 50's JD films and the 60's beach party films, the teen audience at that time was a little ill-defined. I supposed it could have had some "dirty old man" appeal--Kathy Dunn, if anything, looks even younger than her sixteen-year-old character, but some of her classmates like the Russian girl "Natasha" or the boy-crazy German girl "Ilona" (whose romantic entanglements threaten to cause international incidents) were played by shapely, somewhat older actresses. And the most recognizable actress here is perhaps Alexandra Bastedo (the British girl), who would become famous in the early 70's horror film "The Blood-Spattered Bride" as a topless "Carmilla"-type lesbian vampire.

This may not be classic William Castle, but it is funny and entertaining and worth checking out.