My Teenage Daughter, later Teenage Bad Girl, is a 1956 British drama film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Sylvia Syms and Norman Wooland. The screenplay concerns a mother who tries to deal with her teenage daughter's descent into delinquency. It was intended as a British response to Rebel Without a Cause. It was the last commercially successful film made by Wilcox.
Synopsis
Valerie Carr is a widowed magazine editor who lives in London and has two teenage daughters, Jan and Poppet. Jan falls for the wealthy Tony Ward Black, who takes her dancing and for drives in his Bentley. Valeria gets a job editing a magazine for teenagers.
Cast
Anna Neagle as Valerie Carr
Sylvia Syms as Janet Carr
Norman Wooland as Hugh Manning
Wilfrid Hyde-White as Sir Joseph
Kenneth Haigh as Tony Ward Black
Julia Lockwood as Poppet Carr
Helen Haye as Aunt Louisa
Josephine Fitzgerald as Aunt Bella
Wanda Ventham as Gina
Michael Shepley as Sir Henry
Avice Landone as Barbara
Michael Meacham as Mark
Edie Martin as Miss Ellis
Ballard Berkeley as Magistrate
Arthur Mullard as Club Bouncer
Myrette Morven as Anne
Grizelda Harvey as Miss Bennett
Betty Cooper as Celia
Daphne Cave as Deirdre
Launce Maraschal as Senator
Production
Neagle and Wilcox commissioned playwright Felicity Douglas to write a script about the generation gap. It was known during filming as I Have a Teenaged Daughter.
Janette Scott and Shirley Eaton were announced as possible's to play the daughter of Anna Neagle. Wilcox ended up casting Sylvia Syms after seeing her in a television play, The Romantic Young Lady. She recalled, "I was crashingly ignorant and very young, and Anna and Herbert cosseted me and spoiled me. They made my part bigger as I went along... Their generosity was incredible. They didn't pay me much but it was more than I was paid for my subsequent films [under a long-term contract with Associated British]." Julia Lockwood, who plays Anna Neagle's youngest daughter, was the daughter of Margaret Lockwood.
It as shot at Shepperton Studios in Surrey. The film's sets were designed by the art director William Kellner.
Reception
Variety called it "an unabashed sentimental drama, obviously conceived as unsophisticated entertainment... should prove a stout b.o. proposition where the name value of Anna Neagle has potent marquee appeal."
Filmink said the film "was described as Britain’s answer to Rebel Without a Cause, and in a way that’s true, in that it’s about a middle-class teen going off the rails, although it pays far more attention to the adult characters than the Nick Ray-James Dean classic.
Syms said when the film came out "I was, as they say, an overnight sensation" but she "had saddled myself with a seven year contract" with Associated British.
References
Bibliography
Harper, Sue & Porter, Vincent. British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference. Oxford University Press, 2007. Threadgall, Derek. Shepperton Studios: An Independent View. British Film Institute, 1994.