Off-beat… Beat Girl (1960), BFI, London After Dark Season

 

"She’s nearly always here, digs all the modern gear, cool like a lager beer… Beat Girl…”

This film was being shown, in 35mm no less, and as part of the Edgar Wright curated season of films that influenced his new picture, Soho After Dark. As our luck would have it, he not only took the chance to watch the film on the big screen and with an audience, but also to give an impromptu introduction.

He wondered how Edmond T Greville’s film was received on its initial release and guessed that then as now, it was not as well as the makers hoped… it may have done good business but it’s not cool. That said there is much to appreciate in a film of incoherent energy and dubious dialogue but which has so many notable players, genuine sleaze and some few precious location shots, one of which, looking down Old Compton Street with the Greyhound pub on the left and what is now the Prince Charles Theatre on the right, he was determined to reproduce for his film, identifying the exact window from which the shot was made – now a pizza restaurant.

The young generation: Gillian Hills and Shirley Anne Field

The film features two potential British Bardots, the main star Gillian Hills, Jennifer/Jenny, the Beat Girl, and Carol White aka The Battersea Bardot, who although uncredited, appears throughout the film, with little dialogue although clearly directed, and once or twice walking across the action as if denoting possible directions for the other blonde.

Whilst it’s easy to mock the “dated” battle of the generations between the hipsters and the squares – and the film deserves that! - there are some interesting performances and a genuine sense of threat as well as period. Christopher Lee and Nigel Green are the pick for the grownups whilst Adam Faith’s mumbling authenticity and Gillian Hills’ youthful edgy-ness stand out for the kids oh, and one youngster name of Oliver Reed already typecast as “dangerous” who was obviously under clear instruction to dance dangerous, act dangerous and, well, just be yourself.

This language, these words, what does it mean?!

"Bloggin's for squares..." Adam Faith. Smouldering.

The script from Dail Ambler, aka Betty Mabel Lillian Williams a writer of pulp fiction who also used the pen name, Danny Spade, contains lines that even the youngsters sometimes struggle to say… with more Daddios, heps and cools than are credible, to which the grown ups also respond with stilted observations, with Jennifer’s Dad(ioh) top architect Paul Linden (David Farrah) simply unable to understand her. Gillian Hills does however cut through this with a quite wonderfully vindictive performance almost as if she has some score to settle.

Without a doubt, the John Barry-penned theme tune, snarled by Adam Faith with more genuine menace than Cliff or Tommy could ever hope to muster (but not Billy or Vince…) is one of the surer steps of this odd film as is the whole score, Barry’s first and probably worthy of a whole post on its own. It’s not the polished Barry we came to expect but there’s some energetic modern jazz, powerful themes throughout and a couple of decent attempts at rock n’ roll, sung by Faith, Made You and I Did What You Told You. There’s also a song sung by Shirley Anne Field called It’s Legal which has a range of  interpretations.

City of Future Past... Hills, Adam and Farrar

In Vic Pratt’s excellent booklet essay for the BFI’s Beat Girl Flipside Blu-ray, he points out that Adam Faith became more popular as a singer after this film but his rough charm was polished pretty quickly thereby preventing an outbreak of British Elvis-ism before Liverpool smuggled it in two years later, craftily disguised by Brian Epstein’s favourite tailors.

The Beat Girl herself certainly cuts a rug in the basement discotheque, even if Oliver Reed doesn’t, yet authenticity if provided by some of Soho’s finest exotic dancers who show just a little of what they can do in the strip club scenes. This is surely one of the film’s most startling choices… even now this is raunchy stuff recalling scenes from Primitive London plus West End Jungle (also screening as part of this series) and other sexploitative documentaries of the period. These performances are not edited by much and you wonder that 62 years or so probably hasn’t changed the watchers or the watched… the drinks are just more expensive… I should imagine.

Pascaline performing - one of the less revealing shots

Gillian Hills was a sixteen-year-old actress playing a sixteen-year-old rebelling against her strait-laced, radical architect father and his pretty new Parisian trophy wife Nicole played by Noëlle Adam who also gives a very good performance as the woman with a troubled youth of her own to deal with. Her battles with Jennifer are spiky affairs with Hills showing what she’s got in the most pointed of ways, there’s a visceral edge to the women’s relationship that probably says more for Adam’s generosity as a performer than script or direction.

Jenny has undoubtedly been neglected by her work-aholic father and having divorced her mother; he has spent months in Paris romancing his Nicole. That said, no one understands Jenny and even though she is studying art at the respectable St Martins, she would prefer to be out dancing with her beat friends in their Soho coffee shop basement.

Jenny and her stepmother do not get on

Her friends include Dave; a bit of rough with a guitar (Faith), Dodo (Field – a good actress whose remarkable clean features make her seem forever posh, even though she’s from Bolton...) and Tony (Peter McEnery, in his first film), who is constantly swigging from a cough mixture bottle filled with gin… Jenny is not alone in having generational difficulties: Tony’s father is aloof, a war hero without the courage to be a full-time parent, whilst Dave’s had to bring himself up spending so much time playing on bombsites, a world away from post-war regeneration.

Alcohol is not yet “cool” for these guys and it is interesting what they do think is uncool – these beats are passionate about Dave Brubeck, rock and their own means of expression… even if you cringe at some of the self-conscious slang. “He sends me…” says Dodo describing Dave’s singing… yes, but probably not too far from the Home Counties. There’s a nice moment at a party in Chislehurst Caves where both the lads share their feelings about the war, loss and their hopes. They open up but essentially via two intersecting monologues… maybe that’s cool, I don’t know.

Whadya mean maybe that's cool?

 

Jennifer was always going to go to war against her new stepmother partly because of her growing alienation from her father and his obsession with his city 2000 project a model of which fills their sterile living room. See, the fault’s not just youth but career-centric middle age… but the city looks a lot like Brasilia and hey, we’ll need more housing by 2000.

Nichole reaches out to Jennifer and seeks her out in her coffee bar haunt but things go awry especially when she bumps into an old friend, Greta (Delphi Lawrence) who she feigns not to recognise… The kids know Greta as one of the strippers in the club across the road and Jennifer starts digging deeper trying to find a way to antagonise Nichole. She goes into the club to quiz Greta and sees more than she bargained for on stage - an obviously well-practiced, sensuous routine from one Pascaline (actual stage name…) involving innovative use of a long shawl… The seediness looks all too real, especially in the longer cut on the BFI’s Blu-ray, and is frankly disturbing.

S-Lee-zy does it Chris.

Jenny doesn’t get much out of Greta but then she is noticed by the club’s shady manager Kenny (Christopher Lee) who also happens to be – just about – the older woman’s boyfriend. He takes a shine to Jennifer and makes Greta tell her about her life in Paris with Nichole… There’s more but she has to return to learn it all. Nichole goes to meet Greta to try and put a cap on things yet, despite her standing up to Kenny he threatens to reveal more if Jenny is not allowed back to the club. He’s looking for fresh blood and already has a trip to Paris planned with side-kick Simon (great stuff from Nigel Green given a rare chance to be a geezer).

Get out of it you jiving, drivelling scum, get out of it!

Adam Faith about to get slapped

Jennifer starts to go wild, encouraging Dave to drive too fast in a race with other hipsters and inviting a party round to her parents’ house.  She performs a striptease mimicking Nichole’s past and Dad arrives just in time to kick out the beats… All is revealed and yet David is willing to forgive and forget Nicole’s burlesque past – not such a square after all! Hey kids, the Old can learn!

Unaware and angry, Jenny has run off seeking adult refuge with Kenny. As we’re shown another expert routine from a woman in a white negligee (Diane D'Orsay), the seedy club owner attempts to persuade her to come to Paris with him even though he knows she’s under-age… and has no formal dance training. As the Linden’s race to try and find their daughter. Will the Beat Girl be corrupted for good or is there still a chance for her to re-connect with family and knuckle down to her studies??

The great Nigel Green shares a moment with Delphi Lawrence

Beat Girl is pacey and packed with so many moods it’s bound to feel uneven yet it’s a wild ride redeemed by so many interesting performers and its moment in time.

As Edgar Wright says, Gillian Hills may not have become the British Bardot but rather a Zelig-like figure in key films of the period, cavorting with David Hemmings and Jane Birkin in Antonioni’s Blow Up (1968) and then again in a speeded-up threesome with Malcolm McDowell and Barbara Scott in A Clockwork Orange (1971). She even became a pop star in France for a while, scoring the first hit with Zou Bisou Bisou. She’s also in the strange British horror, Demons of the Mind (1972) which may or may not be cool.

There’s a fascinating interview with her from 2016 as part of the extras on the BFI Flipside Blu-ray/DVD and, in addition to looking pretty much ageless, she’s very articulate and revealing about the film and her approach: “I was quite courageous as I knew absolutely nothing…” It barely shows and she still makes the film worth watching.

Gillian Hills now! Stories of hanging with Catherine and Francoise... and so much more!

The release has three versions of the film, one restored from the BFI 35mm we watched and two others of slightly longer length which include more exposition of the newly married couple and then Jenny’s initial confrontation with them in which she places a photograph of her mother in a book on blues and jazz. There are also different takes of the two strip actual strip routines.

The soundtrack LP is also essential and can be found on Cherry Red CD with extended cuts! Personally I really dig the original mono release but I'm just hep to vinyl's scratch and sniff.

“That’s the Beat Girl, feeding the coins into the juke box…long black stockings and no makeup… she makes like she’s not over concerned about this extravagant attention: keeps given’ me the look like I’m supposed to rate this chick high or somethin’…”

Gratuitous location spotting!!

Bar Italia is still there in Frith Street

Berwick Street Market

The Greyhound Pub is still on Old Compton Street: look for a copy of this shot in Last Night in Soho!

Gratuitous dancing shots:

Diane D'Orsay - Soho pro dancer

On the verge of fame:

Carol White later in Cathy Come Home, Poor Cow etc

Oliver Reed, later in everything...

The BFI Flipside Dual Format set you must buy: