"Only squares know where to go!" (Beat Girl (DVD))

Member Name: hogsflesh

Product:	Beat Girl (DVD)
Date:	29/10/09 (50 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Surprisingly good, evocative

Disadvantages: Some rather weak dialogue, a bit silly

A review of the Blackhorse Entertainment DVD, currently about £5 on amazon.

This is a British juvenile delinquent film from 1959. American exploitation studios churned out dozens of these films - a few rock n roll tracks, some teen angst, a bit of cautionary death, and a cosy return to the status quo at the end. This is one of only a few British attempts to ape the formula. What the Brits did produce in fairly high numbers at the time were sleaze films, tame by today's standards but controversial then. Beat Girl tries to fill both genres at once.

Fuddy-duddy architect Paul Linden brings his new, 24-year-old French wife home to London. Unfortunately his 16-year-old daughter Jenny isn't impressed with her nouvelle maman, and soon discovers shameful secrets in her dirty Parisian closet. Jenny hangs out with her beatnik friends in a Soho coffee bar, but finds herself increasingly drawn to the strip club across the road...

This is a great little movie, showing a world where kids are crazy, daddio, and grown-ups are strictly squaresville. These aren't real beatniks, thank christ - no one spouts execrable poetry, no one wears a beret, no one has a beard but no moustache. The supposed beatniks are mostly very posh, although their leader, Adam Faith, is working class. They're a curious bunch of teenage rebels, not drinking ("Drink's for squares, man!") or fighting ("Violence is for squares, man!"). Instead they dance, sing rubbish pop songs, and party.

This is one of those films that tries to please everyone. On the one hand it tries to show the kids that it understands them by presenting their world (but rather fumbles it by making them teetotal and seemingly celibate). On the other, it panders to the disapproving older generation by showing kids doing things they aren't supposed to and getting in all kinds of hot water as a result. And, of course, it caters for people who just want to see fights, dancing and strippers.

It kind of works, if you can see past the cheesy dialogue and hackneyed plot. Although I wouldn't exactly describe these kids as wild and crazy, they do at least dance with a certain amount of panache (albeit at arm's length from one another), and for a change are played by actors who look like they're actually in their teens. Jenny's father is cold, more interested in his architectural models than his daughter, and you feel the film blames him for her alienation, which is refreshingly honest.

The kids' philosophy is summed up as 'Do everything. Feel everything. Strictly for kicks!', while the older generation just doesn't see the appeal of 'sitting around in cafes listening to gramophone records'. There's one really touching scene where two of the beatniks go into reveries about their very different childhood experiences of the blitz. This is unexpected, and it's the film's ability to throw us surprising little moments like that that helps make it something more than just a funny kitsch artefact. Even the 'Hey! There's a train coming! Let's play chicken on the rails!' scene doesn't end as you'd expect.

It feels reasonably authentic, with the coffee bar and the strip club both looking about right. The night scenes in Soho (a very small Soho, but there you are) have a very faint edge of menace not unlike that of the real place on a Saturday night. The striptease sequences are about as explicit as they could be at the time (G-strings and tassels, but not much else). The main theme, by John Barry, is a jazzed-up delight. There are also a few songs, but unfortunately they're rubbish. One in which a girl sings about how it's possible to have fun without breaking the law seems particularly unlikely.

The cast is pretty good. David Farrar and Noëlle Adam have the unenviable father and new wife parts, but do OK with them (I like the bit where Farrar calls his daughters friends 'jiving, drivelling scum!'). Christopher Lee and Nigel Green make a good double-act as the guys running the strip club (Lee gives one of his trademark reptilian sleazebag performances). The kids are at least entertaining. Adam Faith hammers out incomprehensible beatnik slang, trying desperately to be James Dean. The others (including Shirley-Anne Field and a very young Oliver Reed) are either wooden or hilariously over-the-top (Reed's dancing is amazing!) Jenny, the Beat Girl herself, is played by a very sexy actress called Gillian Hills. She sometimes seems a bit impassive, but she pouts and sneers her way through the whole thing, staying just the right side of camp, and remaining more or less likeable.

There are no extra features on the DVD at all. The picture is a bit dark (it's difficult to see what's going on in some of the night-time scenes) and the sound quality could be better (some dialogue is hard to understand). But it's fine for the price.

This isn't a lost classic or anything like that, but it's more engaging than you might expect. If the callow generation-gap dialogue makes you wince sometimes, the film as a whole still just about works. A weird mixture of juvenile delinquency and sexploitation, this is the film Absolute Beginners should have been.

Summary: A juvenile delinquent film that's still worth watching