It's the holiday season and naturally, that makes me think of teenage pregnancy. You know, Baby New Year? Well anyway, I came across the trailer for this movie the other day on YouTube and it sounded so hilarious and unbelievably craptastic that I was almost tempted to "rent" the online version from Amazon.com for $1.99. Almost. The only thing stopping me is that it contains footage of a very graphic, very horrific actual birth verrrrry close-up to boot. The description of this scene from online reviewers who forced themselves to watch it sounds 100 times more vulgar than anything a horror filmmaker could dream up.
That's too bad, because Teenage Mother sounds initially like a hoot--a misguided attempt from filmmakers in 1967 to warn young women about pregnancy and teach them about sex education. There's so much contradictory information right up front in the trailer--we're told that the film broke box office records across the country, yet it's being shown as a "special roadside attraction to select audiences only." Then we're told at the end that every parent should take their child to see the movie--dear God, are you kidding me? To see a baby's head being pulled out of a movie screen-sized vagina with a clamp? The man doing the voiceover sounds like he's from Brooklyn, which makes it all the more comical. I can almost picture him chomping on a cigar every time he says, "Teenage Mutha...means nine months of trouble!"
From the trailer, I assumed that the slutty girl in the lead part (who appears to be performing fellatio on a drumstick) was the one who gets knocked up (she did her homework in parked cars, after all, according to the poster) after her actions lead to her being gang raped one evening. In reality, the preview for this film is extremely misleading. It's really about a Swedish teacher who wants to teach sex education to her high school students, which causes controversy. The girl that we see in the poster wearing a watermelon underneath her sweater is only lying about her pregnancy. And she wasn't gang raped--it appears that way in the trailer but according to reviews, she is rescued. No one even has sex! Confused yet? I have no idea what the birth scene has to do with the movie, then, unless it was the secret sauce to scare young women into using protection. Fred Willard, at this point just beginning his film career, has a bit part as a coach:
The film was directed by exploitation/grindhouse film impresario Jerry Gross (other film titles associated with his name include Female Animal, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and Girl on a Chain Gang.)
I'll pass on watching and reviewing Teenage Mother, but I highly recommend the immensely entertaining trailer:
