Premiered first on SnagFilms, “Girl 27″ is a documentary that focuses on one of the biggest scandals in Hollywood history. In 1937 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the world’s most prestigious and powerful movie studio, tricks 120 underage chorus girls into attending a stag party for its visiting salesmen.

When dancer Patricia Douglas tries to flee, she is brutally raped; defying the studio’s order for silence, Douglas files a landmark lawsuit while MGM launches the biggest cover-up in Hollywood history-until six decades later, when author-screenwriter David Stenn stumbles upon the story. Stenn’s decade-long search for the truth leads to Patricia Douglas herself, nearly ninety and still in hiding.

The situation is timeless, but the setting is very much of the moment.
A young man and a young woman are in love. They have dreams for the future. Wars and rumors of wars stoke the …

A lot of critical ink has been used to talk about how politically brave the film is, given that the outcome of the war was in no ways assured in 1940. So I was ready for the political satire and the humanistic speech at the end. Here’s what I wasn’t ready for–how darn funny the film can be.