Sixteen

***Human vultures prey on youthful naivete in backwoods Georgia*** The odd story’s setting is reminiscent of “The Yearling,” as well as Steve Gerber’s story in Man-Thing 9-10 a couple of years later. For those not in the know, those two issues covered Ezekiel and Maybelle Tork living in seclusion within the swamps of the Deep South with Dawg. Steve no doubt saw this flick, and it inspired his tale a bit. It turns out it’s a quasi-remake of “State Fair” from 26½ years prior (going by shooting dates), just transferring the setting from Iowa to the Deep South and throwing in some tame nudity, which came into vogue in the early ’70s, such as in the contemporaneous “Stigma,” not to mention “The Harrad Experiment,” which debuted the following year. Speaking of nudity, while blonde Simone Griffeth plays the innocent titular girl, she was actually 21½ during filming. Beverly Powers is more alluring IMHO as the dancer, but her venal character is off-putting, to say the least. On the masculine side of things, John Lozier plays Naomi’s slightly older brother while Peter Greene is on hand as the stunt motorcyclist who wants to rob Naomi of her virgin soul. Future movies like “Carny” and “December Boys” were no doubt influenced by this, although they’re a notch better, particularly the latter.   It runs 1h 36m and was shot Oct 1971 at rural areas near Valdosta in south-central Georgia, which is about 20 miles from the border of Florida and 75 miles west of Okefenokee Swamp (by car). The county fair scenes were shot at Thomaston, which is a 2h 50m drive to the northwest in the heart of the state. GRADE: B-