Nine Girls

A madhouse of a movie! Of course one cannot expect good characterisations of young females in a programmer like this. By the way, even in serious A-films of this time you seldom find a teenager who looks and acts like a real teenager. In this film here you see nine girls who look much more like young women (with one or two exceptions). Worst of all, they represent all stereotypes of females when it comes to a crisis. Since other reviewers already sketched the story quite vividly I just say what I felt about it. The main problem is that the girls all have a motive to dislike Paula, so why are they with her? The majority of the girls are so silly it is hard to watch. You think they are just 10 years old although they look at least twice that age. The way they are presented is: one is the bad apple, one (seems to be) the most advanced, one is the beautiful blonde, one learns a lot, one is a tomboy, one is the favorite in the story, one is a chatterbox with too much fantasy and one is plain silly (and one I forgot completely). And the only sensible woman in the film is the chaperon. The film is made for laughs too, and the dialogue is often witty. But the constant repetition of faintings, screams and mindless accusations and behavior weakens the real fun. William Demarest as sidekick to the police lieutenant does his best to divert the attention away from the unbelievable females. Once or twice there are even serious moments and they are well executed. The film gets darker at the end and there is a thriller feeling in it. Could have been much better with more believable characters.