Entertainment

Cult Movie: Beat Girl is straight from the fridge, Daddy-o

Gillian Hills was in her early teens when she starred in Beat Girl – she went on to become a pop singer and actress
Gillian Hills was in her early teens when she starred in Beat Girl – she went on to become a pop singer and actress Gillian Hills was in her early teens when she starred in Beat Girl – she went on to become a pop singer and actress

LAST week in this column I was singing the praises of Expresso Bongo, a ridiculous but undeniably rocking evocation of teenagers adrift in pre-Beatles Britain.

Well if all that talk of hip cats, frothy coffee and the image of a fresh-faced Cliff Richard banging his bongos like a boy possessed didn’t quench your thirst for 1950s British youth culture thrills on a shoestring budget then rest easy, for this week I’ve an even wilder, if slightly less satirical, cult curio for your delectation.

Beat Girl, like Expresso Bongo released through the reactivated BFI Flipside imprint, is a mightily strange film but a hugely entertaining one.

An often overlooked study of juvenile delinquency in the seedy coffee bars of London’s Soho, it first appeared in 1959 and arrives again this month in a Dual Format Edition (Blu-ray and DVD) that’s been struck from the original negative and boasts all the bells and whistles you can expect from a quality BFI release.

That means a ton of extras and a luxurious booklet that fills in the history behind the beat beautifully. As one of the woefully over egged hipsters from the movie itself might mutter it’s “straight from the fridge Daddy-o”.

It’s essentially the tale of black-sweater-wearing London art student Jennifer (portrayed with real power by a 14-year-old Gillian Hills) who runs away from the bland middle-class clutches of her father (David Farrar) to live it up in the dank basements of London’s then thriving beat generation subculture.

It’s there, in the suitably subterranean Off Beat club, that she hangs out with working-class beatnik Dave (Adam Faith), slinky nightclub singer Dodo (Shirley Ann Field), the alcoholic Tony (Peter McEnery) and a check-shirt wearing-hoodlum played by an unfeasibly youthful and dangerous looking Oliver Reed.

There are lots of faux hip gatherings of these moody teens at nearby caves and dare-making “chicken runs” to remind us this is good old-fashioned delinquency we’re talking about here and when the action hits the Soho clubs we’re treated to brilliant performances from grown-ups like Nigel Green and Christopher Lee. Green, later to find fame in Zulu, plays the stage manager at the famous strip joint Les Girls while the always watchable Lee sleazes it up as Kenny King, a local vulture who prays on the teen set and has young Jennifer firmly in his sordid sights.

Directed with workaday efficiency by Edmond T Greville, it’s cheaply made and flimsy story rarely convinces. Despite that, it weaves a cool web all its own and the performances from just about everyone, but in particular Hills and real life pop-star-turned-actor Adam Faith, are excellent – despite the hilariously stilted dialogue.

Perhaps the biggest selling point here though is the music. The very first full motion picture score from the great John Barry, it twangs and fizzes from the first moment to the last.

A cheap slice of 50s exploitation it may be but Beat Girl is fun and fresh and instantly quotable.