''13 Frightened Girls'' (also known as ''The Candy Web'') is a 1963

Pathécolor Pathécolor, later renamed Pathéchrome, was an early mechanical stencil-based film tinting process for movies developed by Segundo de Chomón for Pathé in the early 20th century. Among the last feature films to use this process were the British ...

Cold War

spy film The spy film, also known as the spy thriller, is a genre of film that deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way (such as the adaptations of John le Carré) or as a basis for fantasy (such as many James Bond films) ...

directed and produced by

William Castle William Castle (born William Schloss Jr.; April 24, 1914 – May 31, 1977) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Orphaned at 11, Castle dropped out of high school at 15 to work in the theater. He came to the attenti ...

. Kathy Dunn stars as a teenage sleuth who finds herself embroiled in international espionage. Castle, who was famous for promoting his films with gimmicks, generated publicity by advertising for girls from 13 countries to compete for parts as daughters of diplomats. However, not all of the 15 actresses were from the countries that they represented in the film; for example, American

Judy Pace Judy Lenteen Pace (born June 15, 1942) is an American actress known for her roles in films and television shows, particularly blaxploitation films. Pace portrayed Vickie Fletcher on the TV series '' Peyton Place'' (1968–1969) and Pat Walters on ...

played a Liberian.

Plot

After a 16-year-old girl Candy Hull develops a crush on intelligence agent Wally Sanders in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, she helps him to uncover a communist plot against the United States.

Cast

* Murray Hamilton as Wally Sanders * Kathy Dunn as Candace "Candy" Hull *

Joyce Taylor Joyce Taylor (born Joyce Crowder; September 14, 1937) is an American actress. She starred in movies and TV series mostly in the 1950s and 1960s. Early years Born in Taylorville, Illinois, she based her stage name on her hometown. A coal miner's d ...

as Soldier *

Hugh Marlowe Hugh Marlowe (born Hugh Herbert Hipple; January 30, 1911May 2, 1982) was an American film, television, stage and radio actor. Early life Marlowe was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was born Hugh Herbert Hipple. He was of primarily Engli ...

as John Hull * Khigh Dhiegh as Kang * Charlie Briggs as Mike *

Norma Varden Norma Varden Shackleton (20 January 1898 – 19 January 1989), known professionally as Norma Varden, was an English-American actress with a long film career. Life and career Early life Born in London, the daughter of a retired sea captain ...

as Miss Pittford * Garth Benton as Peter Van Hagen *

Emil Sitka Emil Sitka (December 22, 1914January 16, 1998) was a veteran American actor, who appeared in hundreds of movies, short films, and television shows, and is best known for his numerous appearances with The Three Stooges. He is one of only two acto ...

as Ludwig (uncredited) The other diplomats' daughters: * María Cristina Servera (Argentina) * Janet Mary Prance (Australia) * Penny Anne Mills (Canada) *

Alexandra Bastedo Alexandra Lendon Bastedo (9 March 1946 – 12 January 2014) was a British actress, best known for her role as secret agent Sharron Macready in the 1968 British espionage/science fiction adventure series ''The Champions''. Bastedo was a vegetar ...

as Alex (United Kingdom) as Alexandra Lendon Bastedo * Ariane Glaser (France) * Ilona Schütze as Ilona (Germany) * Anna Baj (Italy) * Aiko Sakamoto (Japan) * Gina Trikonis as Natasha (Russia) *

(Liberia) * Luz Gloria Hervias (Mexico) * Marie-Louise Bielke (Sweden) * Ignacia Farias Luque (Venezuela) * Lynne Sue Moon as Mai-Ling (China)

Reception

In a brief contemporary review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', critic Louis Calta wrote: "The young

Mata Hari Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod (née Zelle; 7 August 187615 October 1917), better known by the stage name Mata Hari (), was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I. She was executed ...

is vigorously played by pretty Kathy Dunn, who was one of the Trapp children in ''The Sound of Music''. If only young Kathy could have raised her voice in song instead of playing detective, things might have been different at the United States Embassy." Calta was referring to the stage version of ''The Sound of Music'', not the film; Dunn was not in the film version, which was released two years later.

Home media

The film was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

in 2009 as part of the William Castle Film Collection. Sony also released a DVD of the film by itself. The film was released on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

in 2016 by Mill Creek Entertainment as part of a double-feature disc with the 1960 Castle film ''

13 Ghosts ''13 Ghosts'' is a 1960 American supernatural horror film produced and directed by William Castle, written by Robb White and starring Rosemary DeCamp, Margaret Hamilton, Charles Herbert, Martin Milner, Jo Morrow, John van Dreelen, and Donald ...

''.

References

External links