MST3K #509: The Girl In Lover's Lane

It's Episode 509, wherein two drifters visit a small town, sowing unhappiness among the townsfolk AND the audience.

Ah, the romance of the open rail! And the soul-crushing depression of the closed heart!

Our movie this week is a sad little slab of teen-crime drama.  Bix is a rough-and-tumble drifter, riding the rails, hopping freights from town to town, after his drunken slob of a father dies. Spoiled rich-boy Danny is running from his home too, though it's just a broken one. After Danny gets rolled and knocked out, they hop off a train near Sherman, a little town with about four women (and two of the four are prostitutes). Carrie (a waitress) falls for Bix, while one of the prostitutes gets Danny drunk and steals his wallet. Carrie gets the pair hired at her dad's diner (where they have to shoo off her stalker), and takes Bix out for night-time walks near the local pond. He pushes her away, since he's determined to drift on.

Sidebar: I couldn't help but be reminded of a similar -- though more recent -- potboiler by Lawrence Block, one of my favorite crime writers. His Resume Speed is about a similar drifter, who gets a job in a diner and falls for a woman. And he has to decide, does he deserve the happiness of settling down, or should he keep punishing himself? The ending of that isn't as manipulative as this one, and treats the subject with more emotion and adult seriousness. 

"Are we gonna hustle these guys, Big Stupid?"

Then Danny makes the mistake of changing a $50 in the local poolhall, and the local gang gives them an alley-fight to remember. And Carrie's stalker keeps creeping by, and before you know it, Bix has broken Carrie's heart, and then the stalker kills her, and her dad is beating Bix nearly to death. Just a really uplifting ending all around.

I dunno, maybe I'm just bummed out because I'm still hurting a little from Resume Speed. (On the other hand, the final host segment is just Tom and Crow coming up with alternate endings to the film, so I know I'm not alone in my response.)

Let's move on to more pleasant things. This episode has one of my favorite original songs from the show, which prompted me to embed a video for the first time in this binge. It's a brilliant train-song pastiche and, thanks to the lyrics from Frank, takes a really dark, real-life turn in the last verse. (The movie's opening "song," too, has a nice set of lyrics courtesy of our funny friends.)

All of these episodes have what I'm starting to think of as "reference clumps". This one has a LOT of references to painters: Picasso, Lichtenstein, Gainsborough, Whistler, and Munch all get mentioned along with Andrew Wyeth. 

This is the second episode in a row to reference: Garrison Keillor, Mr. Ed, Unforgiven, David Crosby, It's A Wonderful Life, Foster Brooks, "Jim Dandy To The Rescue," a Kenny Rogers song, Siddhartha, and Peter Lawford. It's the third to mention The Mary Tyler Moore Show and I Dream of Jeannie.

A joke I had to look up: "I am Xenon. Play me."

A joke that didn't age well: "It's Larry and Balki's apartment."

My favorite joke: I love the whole run of Danny's alternate dialogue. In addition to the one quoted above, there's "What about that guy I groined in the knee?"

Overall, I rate this one: 5/10. The ending of the movie, even with the constant jokes, is too close to sadmaking for me. 

Speaking of sadmaking things, next, I'm bidding farewell to Joel with #510, The Painted Hills.