Before I had even seen this film, I was reading quotes like "possibly the best J.D. drama U. K. has ever produced". I still think "Violent Playground" could be the best (U.K.'s answer to "Blackboard Jungle") but I was really looking forward to this film. It is okay, more like "Dragstrip Girl" meets "Escort Girl" with a lot of gritty British realism thrown in for good measure. Adam Faith wasn't that famous in America but in England he was a huge star. He had an unusual style of singing, similar to Buddy Holly and "Beat Girl" was supposed to showcase his singing after his first few recordings flopped. Because of his collaboration with John Barry, after "Beat Girl" he was on his way. "I Did What You Told Me" is one of several rock and roll numbers sung by Adam Faith in this film.

Paul Linden (David Farrar) is just back from the Continent with a new wife, Nicolle (Noelle Adam) - his 16 year old daughter Jennifer (the beautiful and voluptuous Gillian Hills) is not happy. She is a "poor little rich girl" who is looking for love and affection, but instead has a bedroom full of clothes and the latest fads from her often absent father. Her new stepmother is determined to give her a proper home life. Jennifer, an art student, hangs with a beatnik crowd at the "Off Beat" - a local hang out for teenagers. Most have a home life they are running away from. Parents that are reliving the War and can't understand "Jazz". The kids want to feel different from their parents, they "live for kicks" and want to be a person in their own right. They all have bad memories of the War and use phrases such as "square", "kook", "he sends me over and out" to build up a barrier between themselves and anyone who is not hip. Towards the end the gentle "beatniks" are superseded by the young and violent "teddy boys".

Nicolle meets Jennifer for lunch and she also bumps into an old friend, Rita, who is a stripper. Jennifer, now taunts Nicolle, every chance she gets with a song "take it off, take it off", and begins to haunt "Les Girls" the strip club where Rita works. She also catches the eye of the sleazy manager Kenny King (Christopher Lee) who has dishonourable designs on her. Jennifer throws a party that gets out of hand - she performs a provocative strip tease but is stopped by the appearance of Nicolle. Nicolle reveals her childhood was similar to what Jennifer has experienced. Jennifer, who is really a frightened little girl is involved in a murder and things come full circle when Dave (Adam Faith) declares (after having his car trashed by some teddy boys) "Only squares know where to go"!!!

Shirley Anne Field, who actually had her best year in 1960, with roles in "Peeping Tom", "The Entertainer" and "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", had the small role of "Dodo", one of Jennifer's friends (she even sings a song - "It's Legal". Oliver Reed has an extremely small role of "Plaid Shirt", a juiced up beatnik. The very catchy song played over the credits and through the movie is "The Beat Girl Song".

Recommended.

BEAT GIRL is another film to explore the then-popular craze for Beatnik culture. Like THE PARTY'S OVER, it features Oliver Reed strutting his stuff in various dated dance scenes, and is interspersed with dialogue which sounds incredibly cheesy thanks to the way in which it has dated.

Unlike THE PARTY'S OVER, it's an attempt to provoke censors and audiences with plenty of 'sensation' drama, as in the American quickies. One of the main characters is a former stripper and indeed striptease sequences play a big part in the proceedings; one particular exotic dancer, all the way from Hawaii, perhaps one of the most explicit teases I've ever seen despite the lack of nudity. It must have been incredible for audiences back in 1960.

BEAT GIRL is actually a pretty decent little story. The youthful - and extremely attractive - Gillian Hills plays the girl who discovers her dad's new flame used to be a stripper, while at the same time she immerses herself in Beatnik culture. Most of the film is shot and set around a club in which Nigel Green and Christopher Lee play various sleazy characters. There's plenty of music here too, some of it courtesy of pop sensation Adam Faith, and despite the dating of the cultural material, it's never less than an engrossing - and surprisingly sexy - piece of film-making.

Beat Girl is the United Kingdom's answer to some of the American made teen flicks that were popular drive-in movie fare at this time on our side of the pond. The Beat Girl here is Gillian Hills who is very upset that her dad David Farrar has married this knockout of a young bride in Noelle Adam. She's French, she could be a Brigitte Bardot clone and in a most Freudian turn of the plot the daughter is in a jealous rage over Adam who is only about seven years older than her.

But when Adam comes down to the coffee bar that Hills and her friends hang out at, she finds an old friend who works at a nearby strip joint who knew her when. It seems that Farrar has not been told the whole story of wife's background and now Hills has something on Adam.

What she doesn't count on is the sleazy owner of the strip joint who has a taste for jail-bait. Christopher Lee in a little time out from Hammer horror films is the best thing about Beat Girl. Also in small roles are Oliver Reed and Nigel Green.

British pop star Adam Faith and Peter McEnery and Shirley Anne Field play Gillian Hills's disaffected youthful companions. Faith has a couple of songs in the film which are the other main feature.

Beat Girl was trashy when it was first out and age hasn't improved it any. In the final analysis Hills just proves to be a spoiled brat and the London bobby's advice to Farrar about her needing a good walloping is long overdue.