Christopher Owens 🎥 Released in 1960, pre-Beatles and Rolling Stones, this time capsule is a lot more entertaining and important than you may think.


Jennifer Linden (mesmerisingly played by Gillian Hills in her debut role) is the sarky teenage daughter of Paul Linden, a respectable businessman who plans to rebuild London into a series of tower blocks where the individual can be left alone (a Ballardian nightmare if ever there was one). His new wife, Nichole, has a past she’d prefer not to reveal. But Jennifer, whose love of bebop and rock n roll puts her at odds with her father, soon finds herself in a world of striptease and sleazy businessmen (memorably played by Christopher Lee) as she uncovers Nichole’s secret past.

Ostentatiously an exploitation film dealing with the parental fears of the time (juvenile delinquency, the influence of American culture on British youth, a generation gap between parents who had fought in WWII and the children who only knew the aftermath), retrospective viewing reveals a film that is not only deliciously fun, but also deals with themes of class, the thin veneer of respectability and disaffected youth in a way that is still poignant in 2021.

None of this would be possible without Hill's performance. A cross between Jim Stark and Veda Pierce (with a dead eyed stare that Malcom McDowell would use to great effect in A Clockwork Orange), she is the archetypal post war teenager that so scandalised Britain in the late 50’s. She rejects the material comforts of her world due to teenage nihilism (“Next week - boom! - the world goes up in smoke. And what's the score? Zero”), sees rock n’ roll as the new reason for existing (“You've got to live for the kicks. It's all you've got”) and laughs at the normal conventions of society (“Love? That's the gimmick that makes sex respectable, isn't it”) all the while being tougher than the boys (witness her playing ‘chicken’ at the rail tracks) and reveling in her youth (her stepmother is dismissed as being ancient as she’s 24) and beauty.

The generation gap is evident in one particular scene where Jennifer and her friends head into a cave for some rock n roll. Soon, they end up discussing their parents and the war. One particular character, Tony, seems to have something weighing heavily on his shoulders when he lets out that his mother was killed in the Blitz, leading to this burst of teenage angst:

Look, whatever you want to do, it’s always ‘you’re too young son.’ You want to neck in the park? Oh, go home son. HOME? With the General and his whiskey and his ‘so, those were the days’? Who wants to neck at home? Gives me the screaming ad dabs…

What we see here is the post-war teenagers struggling to latch onto something that is their own. Laden with parents just grateful to have survived, they saw post-war life and the New Towns (like Crawley and Basildon) as proof that the good times were here (and the sort of place Jennifer’s dad would like to turn London into). However, disaffected teens saw this world as (according to Mark Lilla):

...an air-conditioned nightmare in which men commuted to work (and drank too much), women puttered around the house (and popped pills) ... children in cowboy hats pretended to murder one another (transferring their hatred of their parents onto their playmates).

With the sounds of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Gene Vincent and Bill Haley making their way across the Atlantic, is it any wonder these kids latched onto it for dear life?

Notably, the film is the debut score for John Barry, who would go on to become one of the most celebrated film composers ever, with his most notable works soundtracking the James Bond franchise. Having worked with Adam Faith (who appears in the film as one of Jennifer’s friends), Barry’s soundtrack is what you’d expect from that era and it still makes you groove like a hip cat today.

Recent years have seen the film reappraised, with many noting that while the plot is rather threadbare and the dénouement is rather haphazard (although I would argue it’s in line with the ending to The Graduate), the daring dialogue, lesbian undertones (which played a part in the film’s initial trouble with the BBFC) and energetic vibe adds up to make a cult British film.

Highly recommended.

     

 
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist. 


Beat Girl

Christopher Owens 🎥 Released in 1960, pre-Beatles and Rolling Stones, this time capsule is a lot more entertaining and important than you may think.


Jennifer Linden (mesmerisingly played by Gillian Hills in her debut role) is the sarky teenage daughter of Paul Linden, a respectable businessman who plans to rebuild London into a series of tower blocks where the individual can be left alone (a Ballardian nightmare if ever there was one). His new wife, Nichole, has a past she’d prefer not to reveal. But Jennifer, whose love of bebop and rock n roll puts her at odds with her father, soon finds herself in a world of striptease and sleazy businessmen (memorably played by Christopher Lee) as she uncovers Nichole’s secret past.

Ostentatiously an exploitation film dealing with the parental fears of the time (juvenile delinquency, the influence of American culture on British youth, a generation gap between parents who had fought in WWII and the children who only knew the aftermath), retrospective viewing reveals a film that is not only deliciously fun, but also deals with themes of class, the thin veneer of respectability and disaffected youth in a way that is still poignant in 2021.

None of this would be possible without Hill's performance. A cross between Jim Stark and Veda Pierce (with a dead eyed stare that Malcom McDowell would use to great effect in A Clockwork Orange), she is the archetypal post war teenager that so scandalised Britain in the late 50’s. She rejects the material comforts of her world due to teenage nihilism (“Next week - boom! - the world goes up in smoke. And what's the score? Zero”), sees rock n’ roll as the new reason for existing (“You've got to live for the kicks. It's all you've got”) and laughs at the normal conventions of society (“Love? That's the gimmick that makes sex respectable, isn't it”) all the while being tougher than the boys (witness her playing ‘chicken’ at the rail tracks) and reveling in her youth (her stepmother is dismissed as being ancient as she’s 24) and beauty.

The generation gap is evident in one particular scene where Jennifer and her friends head into a cave for some rock n roll. Soon, they end up discussing their parents and the war. One particular character, Tony, seems to have something weighing heavily on his shoulders when he lets out that his mother was killed in the Blitz, leading to this burst of teenage angst:

Look, whatever you want to do, it’s always ‘you’re too young son.’ You want to neck in the park? Oh, go home son. HOME? With the General and his whiskey and his ‘so, those were the days’? Who wants to neck at home? Gives me the screaming ad dabs…

What we see here is the post-war teenagers struggling to latch onto something that is their own. Laden with parents just grateful to have survived, they saw post-war life and the New Towns (like Crawley and Basildon) as proof that the good times were here (and the sort of place Jennifer’s dad would like to turn London into). However, disaffected teens saw this world as (according to Mark Lilla):

...an air-conditioned nightmare in which men commuted to work (and drank too much), women puttered around the house (and popped pills) ... children in cowboy hats pretended to murder one another (transferring their hatred of their parents onto their playmates).

With the sounds of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Gene Vincent and Bill Haley making their way across the Atlantic, is it any wonder these kids latched onto it for dear life?

Notably, the film is the debut score for John Barry, who would go on to become one of the most celebrated film composers ever, with his most notable works soundtracking the James Bond franchise. Having worked with Adam Faith (who appears in the film as one of Jennifer’s friends), Barry’s soundtrack is what you’d expect from that era and it still makes you groove like a hip cat today.

Recent years have seen the film reappraised, with many noting that while the plot is rather threadbare and the dénouement is rather haphazard (although I would argue it’s in line with the ending to The Graduate), the daring dialogue, lesbian undertones (which played a part in the film’s initial trouble with the BBFC) and energetic vibe adds up to make a cult British film.

Highly recommended.

     

 
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist. 


17 comments:

  1. Excellent review Christopher. The pre Beatles era produced some very watchable ‘youth movies’. ‘Play it Cool’ with Billy Fury (directed by Michael Winner) is another one. The soho setting for ‘Beat Girl’ is important as the normal rules of normal life did/do not apply in that patch of London. Jazz was the sound of soho in that era as much as pre Beatles rock n roll and John Barry’s soundtrack is perfect and stands up on it”s own away from the film. John Peel mentioned more than once in interviews of the impact of hearing Little Richard’s ‘Lucille’ on the radio for the first time and how life changing it was for his generation just looking for something, anything. One thing that comes across from that post war British generation is that they were fed up hearing about ‘the war’ from their elders. Peter Hitchens has written about how their elders then were just tired and about to give up on their authority and stand back and let the 60s happen.

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    Replies
    1. PaulJPMN,

      Yes, Soho was (up until the 90's, it seems) a law unto itself. Makes sense why the film is partially set there!

      That line from Hitchens makes perfect sense. In Germany, for obvious reasons, they ended up constructing a new, forward thinking culture (think Krautrock, Kraftwerk and German Minimalism). By comparison, British teenagers had it easy!

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  2. Christopher

    Sounds like "Look Back in Anger" depicted on screen. Vary interesting review, as always, of the theme of a particularly acute inter-generational conflict.

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    Replies
    1. Barry,

      good comparison. It's a shame that a lot of work from that period has fallen out of favour in recent years. These days, most people would only know John Osborne for his role in Get Carter.

      Delete
  3. The krautrockers were the same generation as the first wave of the Red Army Faction with some social overlap between the two as well. British teenagers have certainly had it easy especially since the end of national service. It is the combination of that easy life and the negative attitude to the country and it’s institutions that gave it to them that produced punk. John Peel had to do his national service stint as he was born in 1939 only weeks before the cut off date applied. I wonder how the history of Britain would be different if John Lennon, Mick Jagger and others had been required to do national service in the late 50s/early 60s.

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    Replies
    1. That's an interesting thought. I know George Best (in his autobiography) said that it was crucial that he didn't do National Service, as it would have limited his personality on (and off) the pitch.

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    2. would national service really make a difference if military service hasn't?

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  4. I would say yes. Going into the British Army from the age of 17 until the age of 21 is bound to have an effect on most, knocking the fun out of them. Whereas, whenever teenagers didn't have to do national service, they became the Beatles and the Stones.

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    Replies
    1. my point is a bit different - if the suggestion from PaulJPMN is that national service might produce a different type of discipline, then what benefit would it be if the type of discipline produced by military service does not produce "better" citizens. Or have I missed the point?

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    2. Aren't National Service and Military Service the same thing?

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    3. the differentiation is useful to demarcate the compulsory from the non.

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  5. I was thinking about how musicians like John Lennon, Keith Richards and Freddie Mercury spent their formative years in art school being artistic, exploring political and philosophical ideas, living the life of bohemians when few people led such a life (it is much more common now) and making the social connections that led to their eventual music careers.

    Though rock n roll was fully embraced by British youth in the 50s I think the end of national service was a factor in allowing a generation of musicians to completely immerse themselves in blues, rhythm & blues and then play it in a less self conscious manner. Artists like Little Richard and Chuck Berry were popular with 50s UK musicians but you would not know it to listen to the records those UK musicians made. It was not until the early 60s and the beat explosion that the UK music was really let loose.

    Completely separately the Kray twins were unhappy with national service interrupting their criminal careers and their first spell in prison was related to them going awol and refusing to complete their national service.

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    Replies
    1. It is a possibility - just wonder how it compares to other countries and what musicians like Hendrix / Cash/ Presley / Terence Trent Darby who emerged from the military and creatively flourished.

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  6. Hendrix didn't get his breakthrough until he came to the UK, and it's a popular opinion that Elvis' music went downhill whenever he joined the army.

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    Replies
    1. but the talent of Hendrix had to precede his breakthrough. If we have less time to indulge I guess there is a consequence in terms of creativity. I would write more if I had not to work! It is an interesting theory about national service but I would like to see it fleshed out a lot more.

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  7. It's a bit of a 'chicken/egg' situation. Sure, he had to have the talent which he honed playing for the likes of Little Richard and James Brown. But it wasn't until he came to Britain that, in the atmosphere of Swinging London, he was able to reinvent music.

    There's a little bit of the theory discussed here:

    https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aVfWxyDrOTwC&lpg=PA46&ots=yXp0DziA8G&dq=could%20swinging%20london%20have%20happened%20with%20national%20service&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q=could%20swinging%20london%20have%20happened%20with%20national%20service&f=false

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    1. The link takes me to a dead page.
      I am still not sure that the absence of national service is the main factor.

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