My Teenage Daughter

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.

External links

My Teenage Daughter at Letterbox DVD
My Teenage Daughter at BFI
My Teenage Daughter at Reel Streets

1956 films
1956 drama films
Films directed by Herbert Wilcox
1950s coming-of-age drama films
British coming-of-age drama films
1950s English-language films
1950s British films
British black-and-white films
British Lion Films films
Films shot at Shepperton Studios
Films set in London