If the censors had allowed Beat Girl (Edmond T Greville, 1959) to retain its original title of Striptease Girl it would be far more of an honest representation of this film
than the revised title. And before I give anything else away, let me just
advise any readers who have yet to see Beat Girl that this review is littered
with plot spoilers.
Despite the presence of Christopher Lee, Beat Girl is a ropey old
piece of deliberately controversial tosh designed to titillate its male viewer.
It gave the censors palpitations on release and was eventually given an X
rating after extensive cuts. It’s a shame they didn’t cut the whole thing and
forget about it.
This is a film that is trying so desperately hard to attract some kind
of notoriety with its barely-dressed teen actresses and teen idol singers (well,
Adam Faith) that it forgot to include a plot that was more substantial than a
pornographic B movie. Yep, the plot to Beat Girl is so lacking in any substance
or logic that it fails to even convince as a terrible porn film.
The narrative makes very little sense. In a nutshell, a spoilt teenage
girl is resentful of her divorced dad’s new French bride and wants some
attention. On a deeper level, there are a lot of troubling and misogynistic
tropes at play in Beat Girl and Christopher Lee – as the owner of a strip
club and brothel – is shown molesting a young girl who we are repeatedly told
is underage. Err, that’s sexual assault.
But let’s backtrack and look at the two female protagonists in turn
here: spoilt brat Jennifer (Gillian Hills) and her not-much-older stepmother
Nichole (Noelle Adam).
As the film progresses, we learn that 24-year-old Nichole married
Jennifer’s wealthy dad Paul (David Farrar) to escape a life of prostitution and
stripping in Paris: activities she clearly states she only resorted to due to
her destitution and starvation. And activities that she makes clear she did not
enjoy or want to be involved with. She keeps her past secret from Paul and wants
to make a new life with him in London, only to be rumbled by Jennifer who spots
Nichole talking with stripper Greta (Delphi Lawrence), who is recruiting women
to work in the brothel, and spills the beans to her dad in the hope he’ll boot
Nichole out.
On the other hand we have Jennifer, who we are repeatedly told is
underage (Hills was 15 at the time of filming). Lacking attention from her dad
who has been away for three months, but is absorbed with his work when he is
home, Jennifer starts sneaking out at night to hang out with a hip beatnik
crowd. Once Nichole shows up, Jennifer becomes intrigued by the life of a
stripper and decides this is what she wants to do herself. Strip club boss
Kenny takes a lascivious shine to schoolgirl Jennifer and wants to whisk her
away to Paris to work as a stripper and prostitute, whereupon aggrieved and
exploited stripper and prostitute Greta stabs Kenny to death to save Jennifer
from rape and the same fate that met her.
There are a confusing set of messages at play in Beat Girl. On one hand,
Jennifer’s friend Tony (Peter McEnery) is admonished by his friends for
secretly drinking gin, but on the other hand stripping and prostitution is just
fine. On one hand, Jennifer is scolded by her father for wearing make-up, yet
on the other nobody notices that Nichole sleeps in an impressive amount of
mascara and eyeliner. On one hand, the men in Beat Girl wear suits and full
clothing, while on the other the female characters are lucky if they’re allowed
to wear their underwear. And it is absolutely fine for both Nicole and Paul to
slap Jennifer (a child) hard on the face on separate occasions.
This is a film where it’s OK for a policeman to say “I’d wallop you if
it wasn’t for my pension”. I know it’s 1959 and things have progressed since
then, but what Beat Girl shows - with its representation of sexual
entertainment venues and women as sexual objects for consumption that can be
bought – is that we haven’t come very far in the past 57 years. In 2016, sexual
entertainment venues still exist on high streets up and down this country, and
women are still only valued by their sexual worth – whether in advertising or
in strip clubs. Interestingly, the strippers in Kenny’s club make it clear that
they despise Kenny and that they hate their work and the sad old men who pay to
watch them strip.
So that’s a glance at the patriarchal implications of Beat Girl. But
how does Beat Girl measure up as a film? Well, it’s awful. The plot makes no
sense, the acting is largely terrible, the blending between the beatnik and
stripping clubs makes no sense, and why does Adam Faith keep bursting into
badly dubbed song? This is a charmless, joyless film that at least shows just
how dated, unacceptable and damaging the persistent exploitation of women as
sexual commodities is.
The soundtrack by John Barry (James Bond) is enjoyable though.
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