Rent My Teenage Daughter (1956)

Rather tame - My Teenage Daughter review by SB

This film (the alternative title 'Teenage Bad Girl' gives a less accurate impression) was an attempt to cash in on the 1950s trend for teen-themed films; it explores the angst of raising a 17-year-old daughter who is infatuated with a young man of dubious morals. For most of the film everything is far too decorous - the suburban middle-class milieu of the family, the very restrained young tearaway and so on. Anna Neagle seems a little dim as the mother, and Sylvia Syms in her first film is only adequate. Wilfred Hyde White does his usual patronising uncle type as the magazine owner who employs the mother. The best performance is from Julia Lockwood as the younger daughter - very natural and emotional. The film goes awry when it descends into melodrama in the last half hour.

Some very unlikely things also - for example, the daughter can apparently drive a Bentley with ease through central London although she has never had driving lessons, and the magistrate conducts the court case in a very odd way.