Customer Reviews

Beat Girl

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's a great film sure enough, but a terrible DVD. The print looks as though it was retrieved from a trash can and there are 12 important mintues missing. There is some important dialogue missing from the first scene with Christopher Lee. Next, the stripper scene is missing altogether. Then the ending is all but obliterated. Not good at all and detracts from the overall story.

Lurid, low budget British exploitation JD flick about Jennifer (pouty Gillian Hills) a teen-age "beat girl" who is waiting to go completely wild. She's already sneaking out at night to join her beat friends much to the chagrin of her "square" archtitect father. But when Daddy brings home a much younger French wife named Nicole (Noelle Adam), Jennifer bristles like a porcupine. There's a strip club called Les Girls across the street from the Beat Club where Jenny's gang hangs out and it isn't long before she finds out that stepmom Nicole used to do something sleazy back in Paris. She gleans this information from a burned out stripper at Les Girls who used to "work" with Nicole. And it isn't long before Jenny wanders in to Les Girls and draws the attention of the sleazy owner (Christopher Lee, who's properly oily). Nicole frantically tries to prevent Jenny's father from finding out about her past and also to keep Jenny out of Lee's clutches. But, as plot lines go, things get out of hand. "Beat Girl" offers much in the way of cheesy entertainment. There's blaring music, a "chicken" drag race, cheap girls, lousy "rock-a-billy" songs, a wretched, obviously lip-synched number called "It's Legal" performed by pretty Shirley Anne Field ("Horrors of the Black Museum" and "Peeping Tom") who's one of the gang, some teasy strippers and an awful performance by French actress Noelle Adam who is obviously struggling with her English. Some familiar faces like Adam Faith and a young Oliver Reed as a beat guy called "Green Shirt" are here as well. Faith plays Jenny's wanna be boyfriend and he's responsible for the rock-a-billy numbers done ala Elvis. Frankly, you couldn't ask for a cheesier movie even though the film jumps in spots as though it were cut or censored. The print is pretty scratched up, too, but it's watchable. But I really liked Bardot look-a-like Hills as Jenny. She was perfectly snooty, catty and irritating to the point you couldn't wait to see her come to a bad end. If you're patient with the flaws, "Beat Girl" is a lot of trashy fun in the JD genre. As Jenny says, "Dig this and dig it real...". Enjoy.

Five stars if the DVD were put right.

This is the first DVD I've ever seen that is clearly an expurgated TV version. Not only are there the scenes missing, as mentioned in other reviews here, there is even a curse word blanked out near the end. Urg. And no one seems to have mentioned that the film is presented full-screen when it is clearly not that originally (since the credits are presented in something like 1:1.66 aspect ratio). Don't believe Amazon when they say it is widescreen.

And who would care except that this is a delightfully awful youth movie, perhaps the best ever made. It deserves the Criterion treatment. It is every bit as memorable as Band of Outsiders. And the musical sequences aren't any goofier than Pierrot le Fou.

In fact the musical number It's Legal is wonderfully silly. And I would like to correct another review here. The woman doing the lip syncing, Shirley Ann Field, was no more than twenty-two at the time, not at least thirty. Shirley appeared in significant roles in two truly great movies the same year she made BG, Saturday Night Sunday Morning, and The Entertainer. But in this movie she gets to bravely deliver most of the hilarious beat slang. And "Strip like a Frenchie!".

I would also point out that Oliver Reed cannot possibly be mistaken for a Ted in that flannel shirt. Half way to Grunge styles, if anything.

The film is a great antidote to all that nonsense about the same era that was made later, like American Graffiti and Grease, awful stuff that. Where were you in '62? Well, as Adam Faith says in the closing line of Beat Girl, "Only squares know where to go." Half way to Punk sensibilities, if anything.

Superb low-budget masterpiece combines John (James Bond Theme) Barry's classic soundtrack with an all-pervading atmosphere of sleaze. Christopher Lee is excellent as a corrupt strip-club manager with a taste for young flesh; Gillian Hills does a very respectable British Bardot and Adam Faith struggles manfully with a role a Jazz fan (but who sings rockabilly). Plus some great strippers! Forget Gandhi, this is the best film Britain exer made.

It was great to see this film becoming available again on DVD. The movie is a classic featuring a British perspective on the beat era with lots of cheesy "hep" talk and is a real must for collectors of 1960's British black & white classic's. The one issue I have with the movie is that the DVD re-issue is missing the amazingly erotic strip scene from the original cinema release- a bit of a disappointment really. If however you have not seen the original movie then enjoy!

While Beat Girl can easily be "read" as an "youth-ploitation" film in the Chalkboard Jungle mold, it is better than most from the era in how it delves into some of the undercurrents in British youth subculture of the time. Rumor has it that a new British edition will be coming out soon -- hopefully, it will contain the footage that is missing from this edition, and will come from a cleaner print (with fewer awkward splices). Adam Faith may have had virtually all his hit singles sugar coated with orchestral strings--thereby making them more middle-of-the-road pop than rock--but in "Made You," which he sings in this film, proved that he could also rock out. Gillian Hills shows the fire that would make her a star, and John Barry's theme music--which is heard a tad too often throughout the movie--puts rock and roll into jazz in a way that few composers were doing in 1960.

Superb camp value! My favorite scene: A 30-ish actress playing an 18 year old girl singing a song called "It's Legal." A must-have for any cheesy movie lover's collection!

I did not purchase this film on Amazon. I actually found it, complete and uncut, for free, online. It was my first time really watching a '60s teen exploit film, but I REALLY enjoyed it! Jennifer is the classic, spoiled, beautiful, teen rebel who chooses to investigate the her stepmother's past.

At times, Jennifer is seemingly a normal teenager with a normal amount of teenage angst. Other times, she's a spoiled petulent child acting out.

Overall, I enjoyed the story!

I love this movie!!! It is the best camp classic around. I could watch it over and over.
Some of the best lines are from this movie:
"She hangs with that beatnik crowd." "Beatnik?" "It's hopeless and soapless!"
This movie shows what happens when you hang out in coffee houses. Beware!

I have found reviews by others to be true in that stripper scenes from the movie were cut in the re-release of this film--other films have deleted scenes included, and I doubt if any of this equal other films with partial nudity in them.