13 Frightened Girls (1963) dir. William Castle, William Castle Productions
When you think Castle, you tend to think gimmicks. We've seen flying skeletons, punishment polls, and fright breaks. How would Castle top those?
We focus on Candy (Kathy Dunn), daughter of a CIA bigwig and current student at an exclusive Swiss boarding school alongside twelve other students, all of them daughters of various movers & shakers in their respective countries.
That was the gimmick, apparently. Castle held a beauty pageant for each girl. We here in the states got to see Candy, whereas Italy would focus on Anna Baj's character, etc. That's what I've been able to find, as I've only seen the American cut.
Candy is madly in love with CIA agent Wally Sanders (Murray Hamilton). He turns her down, rightfully, but this convinces her that she needs to prove herself to him. So she dubs herself Agent Kitten and starts weaseling info out of her friends.
When she steals the boyfriend of her German friend, she gets in over her head when the boy thinks he's about to bag a spy and tries to kill her. He ends up going head first out of the hotel window. When an American agent is found dead at the house of Mai-Ling (Lynne Sue Moon), Candy starts grilling her friend and her father, Kang (Khigh Dhiegh).
Turns about being a spy is harder than she thought, so Candy breaks down in tears to Mai-Ling and confesses that she's really Agent Kitten. Mai-Ling is equally sad and confesses this to her father. Who does the reasonable thing and hires a master assassin called the Spider to take out Agent Kitten and her entire network.
A bit goofy? The gimmick really doesn't work (if it existed at all) and a air-headed Nancy Drew getting involved in global politics could be funny but here it just falls flat and ends in cheap slapstick.
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