Beat Girl. 1960. Great Britain. Directed by Edmond T. Gréville. 85 min.
Too young in the late 1950s and early ’60s to have been beatniks, the Club 57 Baby Boomers were still drawn to the rebellious, seen-it-all term, even if it did seem a bit dated by the end of the 1970s. Hence the popularity of the 1959 Brit film Beat Girl (aka Wild for Kicks), about an angry teen who wants to lash out at her father and his new wife, who used to work at…a beatnik strip joint in London’s sleazy Soho! And the club just happens to be owned by Christopher Lee! And Oliver Reed just happens to be a druggy patron! Beat Girl features a great jazz and “beat” score by John Barry, who would later compose the James Bond theme. From rockshockpop.com: ‘Even in its time it must have been a pretty hard film to take seriously (and it’s tough to be 100% sure that we were ever supposed to), but it is nothing if not entertaining. There’s a…killer sixties rock and roll soundtrack behind it all that makes it a pretty fun little movie. On top of that we get some pretty scintillating striptease footage that earned the film an X rating in its native England upon its initial theatrical release.’” (film notes by John Epperson).