My Teenage Daughter

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. Valerie 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.

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.

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "My Teenage Daughter deserves some credit for attempting a topical "problem" subject. It emerges, however, as a very British, somewhat lukewarm Rebel Without a Cause, which skirts around its subject without ever convincing one that its authors are really anxious about the problem. Jan's delinquency is tritely expressed in her repeated assertion, "I want to lead my own life", and in the fact that she finds jive "madly exciting". About Tony, the script is ambiguous: one never discovers whether he is meant to be really corrupt or merely "mixed up", and the fortuitous manner of the aunt's death makes the climax seem absurdly contrived. Anna Neagle gives a rather bleak performance as the harassed widow. Sylvia Syms is competent but undistinctive as Jan. Kenneth Haigh, in his first film, gives a highly mannered though effective "rebel" performance as Tony."

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.

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.

References

1. Vincent Porter, 'The Robert Clark Account', ''Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'', Vol 20 No 4, 2000 p. 509
2. "My Teenage Daughter".
3. "BFI | Film & TV Database | My Teenage Daughter (1956)".
4. Harper & Porter p. 158
5. Stephen Watts. (Aug 21, 1955). "Neagle-Wilcox on Youth – Profits – Random Round-Up of New Ventures". New York Times.
6. (13 July 1955). "London".
7. (12 August 1955). "Teenage Topics". Nottingham Evening Post.
8. McFarlane, Brian. (1992). "Sixty voices : celebrities recall the golden age of British cinema". BFI.
9. Tims, Hilton. (1989). "Once a wicked lady : a biography of Margaret Lockwood".
10. Threadgall p. 56
11. (1 January 1956). "My Teenage Daughter". [[The Monthly Film Bulletin]].
12. (27 June 1956). "My Teenage Daughter".
13. Vagg, Stephen. (February 22, 2023). "The Surprisingly Saucy Cinema of Sylvia Syms".