We love those old British films that took full advantage of the relaxation of censorship laws in the early 1960s. If you wonder why we love to revel in such sleaze, check out this UK poster for Beat Girl, a 1960 exploitation epic about a girl who decides to get even with her young step-mother by revealing her past life as a stripper. "This could be your teen-age daughter!", warned the tag line. We don't find anything wrong with that at all, as long as it is your teenage daughter. There was an alternate phrase used on other posters that proclaimed, "Uninhibited striptease! Melt! Melt! Melt!" Naturally, the studio presented the tawdry teens in the thinly disguised veil of being a commentary about a mainstream social problem. You know, like Bill O'Reilly's reports on the horrors of overindulgence during spring break in Florida - but seemingly the problem only affects beautiful, big busted chicks with morals that make Paris Hilton look like Mother Theresa. As with most British films of this era, this low-budget potboiler had minor roles by some major stars in the making including our old friend Christopher Lee and mad dog and Englishman Oliver Reed who has a role so small he is billed simply as "Plaid Shirt" (well, at least it wasn't polyester.) If you check the fine print, you'll also see that the John Barry Seven provided the beatnik musical score. Yes, that John Barry who would become a musical legend within a few years. Well, we all have to start somewhere.
Beat Girl will finally be released on DVD in the UK on July 1. We are not listing the link for the USA version, as we're told it is a severely cut edition of the film. We will list it when and if the uncut version is made available. After all, we don't want to disappoint our fellow middle aged, dirty old men! - Lee Pfeiffer
CLICK HERE TO ORDER BEAT GIRL DISCOUNTED FROM AMAZON U.K.