Beat Girl (1960) on Netflix
Paul Linden, a middle-aged architect, brings his young new wife Nichole home to London, where his teenage daughter Jennifer resents her. Jennifer slips away to a Soho café with her friends.
- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb5.9/101,355 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Jennifer Linden studies at Saint Martin's School of Art in London and lives with her father, the architect Paul Linden, who has just come back from Paris with a young new wife, Nichole. Jennifer turns down every friendly attempt her stepmother makes. Once the couple have gone to bed she leaves the house for the Off-Beat café in Soho, where she spends the evening dancing to rock music with her friends. At lunchtime the next day Nichole comes to the art school to take Jennifer to lunch and learns she has gone to the café. There Nichole confronts her in front of her friends and tells her not to miss Paul's business dinner that evening. On her way out a woman greets Nichole by name and gets no answer.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Beat Girl (1960)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The British Board of Film Censors in March 1959 called the original script, titled Striptease Girl, "machine-made dirt" and the worst script its reviewer had read in years. The project was renamed Beat Girl and the nudity reduced, but censors still objected to striptease scenes, juvenile delinquency and teenagers playing chicken on railway tracks.
- The song "Made You," composed by John Barry and Trevor Peacock and performed by Adam Faith in the film, achieved minor hit status before the BBC banned it for suggestive lyrics.
- The Beat Girl soundtrack was the first British soundtrack released on a vinyl LP. It reached number 11 on the UK Albums Chart and paved the way for other film soundtrack albums.
- Beat Girl marked the first film roles of British pop idol Adam Faith and actor Peter McEnery, though it was not released until after their other films Never Let Go and Tunes of Glory had come out.
- Starlet Gillian Hills had been discovered by Roger Vadim, who considered casting her in Les liaisons dangereuses but chose not to; she made her film debut in Beat Girl instead.
- John Barry was asked to compose the Beat Girl soundtrack because he had been working as Adam Faith's arranger, and he was then hired to score Faith's next films, Never Let Go and Mix Me a Person, leading to his career as a film composer.
- A sample from Beat Girl's title track was used in Fatboy Slim's 1998 single "The Rockafeller Skank", for which John Barry receives a co-writer credit.
