Secrets of a Co-Ed (1942) Poster

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6/10
So violent and raw, it's almost like porn
Handlinghandel22 December 2007
This is certainly not Joseph H. Lewis at his best. The movie was clearly shot on a low budget. The print I saw was shaky. (This was especially frustrating because several times, pages from the title character's diary, written in script, take up the whole screen and just cannot be read.) Otto Kruger is excellent is an attorney of questionable moral stature. There's a plot about him and his cases and his private moneymaking endeavors. Going on simultaneously is the plot involving said coed: She is his daughter. She is the terror of the campus of a small school. Tina Thayer isn't asked to do much in this role. She's cast just right, though: outwardly sweet, small -- and a complete brat.

Rick Vallin is excellent as a hoodlum who bridges the two plot lines. He's handsome, though convincingly nasty.

Diana Del Rio plays his romantic interest. She sings at a club. What a fiery look she has! She does a campy yet impressive song called "Brazilly Willy." It was written by Jay Livingston, who went on to win three Academy Awards for music in higher class movies.

Lewis keeps a tight rein on the performers and the film moves along with verve and power.
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4/10
Diary of a spoiled brat.
mark.waltz23 August 2016
Warning: Spoilers
With a father like hers, how else would she be? Powerful but low life mob attorney Otto Kruger has a daughter so self consumed, she wouldn't know a nice guy if he were to present her with the deed to her own flower shop. College co-ed Tina Thayer has a taste for bad boys, or in this case, nefarious casino owner Rick Vallin. That's unbeknownst to her own father who is so sure that she was a nice girl that he spoiled her. But when Kruger gets rid of Vallin as a client, Vallin plots his own revenge which results in his murder and Thayer goes on trial. It's too little, too late for regrets from either father or daughter.

Kruger switches gears from ruthless to regretful as he defends his daughter for murder, and almost convinces that he's as noble as any father can be. His courtroom soliloquy is well recited with an out of the blue twist. Diana Del Rio is the cold blooded femme fatal who seems the likeliest if suspects. I just didn't buy the way this ended, a real let down even for a N film.
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