The Violent Years

The Violent Years is a 1956 Glurgefest bringing us the story of one young Paula Parkins. She has it all on the surface... money, things, a lovely house, beauty and youth. However, the movie posits, she lacks the most important thing, true parental attention.

This lack of attention means that Paula must naturally turn to crime to get satisfaction with life. She forms a girl gang with three friends and they end up knocking over gas stations. Eventually they're forced to switch targets, and ultimately Paula seeks greater fare. And boy does she (and her friends) get it.

Ed Wood didn't direct this film, but he did write it.

For the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, please go to the episode recap page.

The Judge's "The Reason You Suck" Speech also provides the intro samples for the Ministry song "So What".

The Violent Years contains the following tropes

• Alliterative Name: Paula Parkins
• Author Appeal: Angora sweater? You bet.
• Artistic License Law: So the grandparents of an orphaned child have to specifically petition the courts for custody, and the same judge that just presided over a murder trial can turn them down because he thinks they're neglectful and a state orphanage is a better place for the baby than with affluent family?
  • The judge then advises that families turn to the Church, neglecting the idea that there are religions other than Christianity, much less the separation of Church and State.
• Badbutt: The girls come off as this during their final crime rampage. See Poke the Poodle, below.
• Black and White Morality: Exemplified by the ridiculously pious judge.
• Death By Childbirth: Paula eventually succumbs to this.
• Double Standard Rape (Female on Male): Done in such a way to brutally subvert All Men Are Perverts.
  • Also sets up the particularly harsh Downer Ending.
• Downer Ending: In a Glurge-fest, nobody wins. Nobody.
• Dull Surprise: The gas station hold up.
• Ed Wood: He wrote this.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite claiming to be getting paid by a "foreign power" to wreck a school room, Sheila immediately calls the police when Paula reveals she killed a policeman.
• Gainax Ending: "So what?"
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Ed Wood's dialog always bubbles with subconscious sexuality.

Barney: They're a cute pair. Paula: They have their points.

• Jerkass: The judge, and Paula to an extent due to her sullen, spoiled nature.
• Mister Exposition: The family court judge, who also functions as a bookend for the movie.
• Moral Myopia: "[The cops] are shooting back!"
• Motive Rant: Done by the very smarmy judge at the end.
• Poke the Poodle: The gang's (for want of a better word) "rampage" through their school consists mostly of... tipping chairs over and erasing chalkboards. Oh, and killing a cop.
• Spinning Paper: Announces the aforementioned rape.
• Sweater Girl
• Tempting Fate: "Hah! Look at 'em jump! Just like rabbits!" BLAM.
• Too Dumb to Live: When in a shootout, always take a moment to gloat.
  • When you are being confronted by a girl gang, the leader of said group having informed you she's killed a cop, by all means pick up the phone and threaten to call the police.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?: A "foreign power" wants the girls to crash a school room. Not the entire school, just the room. The movie treats this as the real Moral Event Horizon.