Mamie van Doren Movies

Another horny-teen epic from Galaxy International, Free Ride asks us to identify with jerky preppie Gary Hershberger. Anxious to impress a sexy but monumentally stupid young woman, Hershberger claims that a snazzy red sports car that has just pulled up to a singles bar is his. He "borrows" the car and takes the girl for a joyride, little knowing that the back seat contains a quarter of a million dollars of mob money. Connect the dots and you'll figure out the rest of the story. All Free Ride really has going for it is the campy presence of 1950s sex-bomb Mamie Van Doren and a handful of raunchy verbal gags. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A manipulative self-serving promoter attempts to exploit a yokel trio comprised of a singing minister and his musical brothers in this tuneful drama. The fast-talking, charming promoter manages to romance a wealthy woman into providing financial backing for the group. But eventually she learns the truth about the slickster and he gets his just desert. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Monstrous carnivorous trees with dangerously acidic saliva set off from their secret tropical paradise home in Antarctica to eat every human on Earth. Fortunately, the U.S. Navy isn't about to let that happen. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this western, a cowboy gathers together a rag tag gang to help him exact revenge upon the villainous outlaws who slaughtered his ma and pa. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This parody of Genesis caused an uproar before and during its release (the final version was reworked and cut) though its routine or worse cinematic level would not encourage large audiences. The story begins with a busload of men and women with hang-ups in the romance department, all heading for Reno. A sudden rainstorm brings on flooding, and the passengers have to hole up in a church. That setting, apparently, suggests the skewed "dream" of Genesis that follows. The Catholic Legion of Decency gave this film a Condemned rating. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Curvaceous Mamie Van Doren plays a super-genius who finds herself in charge of a college science department. Mamie would like to be appreciated for her intellect alone, but her male students (and most of the faculty) are preoccupied by her monumental breasts. The science department is virtually controlled by a huge robot called Thinko, which plays bets on horses. Gangsters Mickey Shaughnessy and Allan Drake try to neutralize Thinko, who's been right once too often. Strongarming their way on campus, the two crooks recognize Mamie as a former striptease artist. Forced to resign, she marries professor Martin Milner, who has loved her pure and chaste from afar. One expects to see such people as Jackie Coogan, John Carradine and Louis Nye in garbage like this-but how did Tuesday Weld get talked into participating? And wait till you see that nightclub number performed by Conway Twitty. Beauty and the Robot played in many markets under the step-right-up-folks title Sex Kittens Go to College. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mickey Rooney plays labor racketeer Little Joe Braun in this fast-paced and surprisingly violent drama about one man's determination to clean up his union. Bill Gibson (Steve Cochran) is Little Joe's nemesis and is one of the men who can testify that he saw the labor boss in an incriminating conversation with a known criminal -- something that Little Joe denied under oath. Knowing that Cochran and one other witness can bring him down, the crooked labor boss starts on a campaign of terror. One of Bill's friends is set on fire, someone else is thrown into a cement mixer (in the opening scenes), and finally, Little Joe kidnaps Bill's son Timmy (Jay North). The odds at this point, seem very much in the labor boss' favor. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This sexually explicit, low-budget film makes no pretensions about being anything other than offensive. There is no plot since none is especially necessary. Director Charles Haas (his last film was the following year), opens with a scene of sexually active men and women at a party. Then one of these women, Silver Morgan (Mamie Van Doren), is mistakenly accused of a crime and sent to an institution, run by Catholic nuns, for wayward young women. As it turns out, the inmates in the institution actually run it through sadistic means. One of them is even more seriously mentally disturbed than the others, and so the nuns welcome her as a novitiate, making even a non-Catholic viewer grimace. The content of this story, such as it is, is made all the worse by an accompanying disregard of the craft of filmmaking. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Hard-boiled, self-educated newspaper editor Clark Gable turns down an opportunity to lecture before a night-school journalism class, publicly ridiculing the notion that the art of news writing can be taught. Gable's publisher, sensing a good story, orders the recalcitrant editor to appear at the lecture. Upon entering the classroom, Gable overhears journalism teacher Doris Day, the daughter of a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, condemn Gable's attitude towards higher education. Intrigued by the lovely Day, Gable enrolls in her class under an assumed name. He quickly goes to the head of the class (after all, he's had more experience than all the other students combined), then begins a campaign to romance Day. But there's a fly in the ointment: Day's fiance Gig Young, who gives an Oscar-calibre performance as a smug know-all. Likewise stealing every scene she's in is Mamie Van Doren, playing an exotic dancer who's set her sights on Gable. Fay and Michael Kanin's sprightly screenplay for Teacher's Pet manages to steer clear of any and all potential cliches. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Producer Albert Zugsmith serves up another all-star exposé with High School Confidential. Delivering a superb performance under the circumstances, Russ Tamblyn heads the cast as "typical" high schooler Tony Baker. Usually seen in the company of his voluptuous "aunt" Gwen Dulaine (the truly impressive Mamie Van Doren), Tony convinces one and all that he's looking for kicks of the controlled-substance kind. In truth, however, our hero is really an undercover narcotics agent named Mike Wilson, bound and determined to smash the operation of drug lord Mr. A. (Jackie Coogan). The once-in-a-lifetime cast includes such worthies as John Drew Barrymore (Drew Barrymore's daddy), Ray Anthony (then married to Mamie Van Doren), Charles Chaplin Jr., Michael Landon, and Jerry Lee Lewis as "himself." This updated Reefer Madness is not to be missed! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

If Jet Pilot seems hopelessly out of date today, imagine how filmgoers in 1957 reacted when this relic from 1949 was taken off the shelf. Many, many years in the making due to the maniacal tinkering by producer Howard Hughes (who reportedly lost $4 million on it - a massive sum back then), the film was deemed unreleasable upon completion; only when Universal-International took over distribution of a handful of RKO Radio productions did it finally see the light of day. John Wayne stars as an air force colonel stationed in an Alaskan outpost only 40 miles or so from the Soviet Union. Wayne is put in charge of Russian jet pilot Janet Leigh, who claims that she wants to defect. Actually, Leigh is a Communist spy, but thanks to Wayne's affectionate attentions she is won over to the side of Democracy. Thus it is that Leigh rescues the Duke when he is kidnapped and nearly brainwashed by her Commie comrades. Jet Pilot was eventually bought back from U-I by Hughes for his personal collection; not only did he buy into the propagandistic plotline, but he was also enthralled by the aerial scenes, some of which were staged by legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager. The 1949 production date for a number of sequences explains not only why so many of the actors look young for 1957, but the existence of several supporting cast members who had died in the interim (such as Jack Overman and Richard Rober). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide