Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Aussie Amazon Customer, March 31, 2004
By A Customer
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.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
TO STRIP OR NOT TO STRIP....., April 25, 2004
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.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Strip Like a Frenchie, May 30, 2006
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.
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