Laya Rakis striptease - Beat Girl (1961) Discussion

[–] peterdub 16 years ago

The film is to be shown next Friday (Jan 11th 2008) on BBC4. Let's hope that scene is in it!

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[–] gonog998 16 years ago

Thanks for letting me know about that - I just looked up my TV Times and saw that it is being broadcast at 7.40 - well before the watershed so that doesn;t bode too well for that strip scene. Lets hope that the beeb isn't so fussy about these matters on BBC4 and have let the strip scene slip past.

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[–] lucy-causton 16 years ago

I take it she was the dusky one humping the floor? Quite a lot of pelvic thrusting for 8.15 in the evening..

;-)

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[–] Lord_Caes 16 years ago

I just watched the BBC4 showing. What an amazing film. Can anyone tell me how ground breaking it was, and what kind of controversy it caused?

L_C

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[–] gonog998 16 years ago

The question about how controversial it was - well it has to be remembered that there was a series of films made in Britain around that time - the late 1950s to early 1960s - which have been given the generic name of British Sleaze films by movie buffs. So this film isn't a one-off. How many there are actually are is anybodys else as I don't think there has been a book written about them. I would guess around 20 films movies or so.
This film was a typical example but far more interesting than most - like many of them it was passed with an X certificate - meaning that nobody under 16 would be allowed to see it. Even them that hot strip scene was completely cut from the release - it was only put back in many years later. Such was the prudery of the time.
As a teenager of 13 I was not old enough to see it. I only caught up with it many years later on tv.
So it didn't cause that much of fuss as I recall.
It does attempt in places to really understand the teenagers - particularly in one of the best scenes in the movie where Adam Faith and Peter McEnery talk about their fathers and how they feel neglected. (McEnery interestingly turns up as the homosexual "Boy" in the famous movie Victim - made the following year)
But the plot - about the stepmother being - horror of horrors! - a former stripper is frankly ludricous. Nevertheless the rest of the film has so many compensations - such as -

- a glimpse of the short lived "coffee bar" culture that was around just before the swinging 60s.

- the John Barry Seven - before John Barry hit the big time with the James Bond movies.

- Christopher Lee taking time off from Hammer to play a real sleazeball

- Nigel Green as a stripclub bouncer before becoming famous in movies like the Ipcress File

- Oliver Reed as a beatnik

- some "teddy boys" tearing up a car

- Shirley Ann Field proving was as poor a singer as she was an actress

- Gillian Hills made up to look like Bridget Bardot. Gillian Hills turned later in the 60s in Blow Up.

All in all its a fascinating museum piece.
Other titles to look for in British Sleaze cinema are -
- Tread Softly Stranger ( a sort of british film noir with Diana Dors)
- Passport to Shame (an expose of high class prostitution - again with Diana Dors.
- Too Hot to Handle (about london gangs and strip clubs - starring Hollywood imported star Jayne Mansfield
- The Small World of Sammy Lee (yet again about Soho strip clubs and gangsters and starring Anthony Newley - this is one of my own personal favourites).
Unfortunately almost all these titles are impossible to find - and when they do turn up the print quality is usually awful. Which is why should we should all give a big thankyou to BBC4 for showing - uncut - Beat Girl.

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[–] Lord_Caes 16 years ago

Many thanks for the info. I'll put those suggestions on my to watch list.

I have to mention as well that Victim is such a brilliant film. It's a shame oldies like it are shunned by many people, just because of when they were made or even that they are b&w. They still have something to teach us, and are especially interesting for the time capsule they can represent for the era they were made. I think many films from the 60s will still be watched in 50 years time, where as films from the 2000s??

Also something about the length of films from the past is more satisfying than many of the pretentious over-long films of today.

I agree BBC4 did very well to show the film - in fact they should have made more publicity about it.

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[–] gonog998 16 years ago

In regard to Victim - yes this was a ground breaking film for its time. In fact it was so ahead of its time that the story goes that half the British film-going public didn't know what the movie was really about....! Hard to believe but people were far more innocent (or maybe more cruelly, ignorant) about such matters back then.
Bogarde - in later interviews - downplayed his courage in taking on the role as the gay barrister - but it was a brave thing for a matinee idol to do. Fortunately it paid back big dividends for him because after the films release he was considered as a serious actor by other film makers and not just a glamourous star - that led on to him being cast in some great films - such as The Servant: The Damned : Death in Venice.
The motorbike blackmailer was played by a superb actor called Derren Nesbit - whether he was gay in real life I have no idea. He turns up in many films of that time - the best being the marvellous lowbudget B movie called The Man in the Back Seat.
Possobly his biggest film was Where Eagles Dare (1968)with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood where he plays the nasty Gestapo man.
Many stories surround the making of Victim - one of the most famous is an incident during a boardroom meeting discussing whether to make the film or not. When it was given the go-ahead one man at that meeting was so disgusted by the decision that he said he had to go to the bathrooom to wash his hands in carbolic soap to get rid of the feeling of moral disgust! Such was the homophobia of the time.
The film tried to convey the complete range of British feeling about homosexuality at the time - so in the film we have the homophobic barman, the frightened young wife (she feels threatened by her husbands compassion for "boy"), the "live and let live" blowsy woman at the bar who is an early example of the "fag hag", the liberal police inspector aided by his puritanical sergeant and so on.
The Wolfenden parliamentary committee was going strong at the time - their aim was to relax the draconian laws against male homosexuality up to that time. Wolfenden approached the film makers after the films release to tell them how much it had helped their case.
No American big studio film got near the courage of this british film - as far as i am aware. The first was The Detective with Frank Sinatra in 1968 i believe.

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[–] Lord_Caes 16 years ago

Thanks for the info once again, very interesting.

Watched the Blue Lamp the other day. Although I really enjoyed it, I noticed how flat and one sided the police were portrayed. I know that it could be said that this is important for the power of the film and how the crime is felt by the audience, but I think we can both have sympathy for a police officer who is shot and that not all policemen are jolly, whiter than white selfless individuals. Anyway for a depiction of a time and place, it's very interesting. No cars in central London!

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[–] gonog998 16 years ago

I take your comments about The Blue Lamp but it must be remembered that the British public were sh*tting bricks in the immediate postwar period because the extraordinary surge in teenage crime. Having just fought a war for survival the British establishment and the general public couldn't understand why this occurred - the knee jerk reaction was to come down and come down hard on teenage "hoodlums". Things came to a head with the famous or infamous Craig/Bentley case in which a policeman was killed. Check out the grim but brilliant film Let Him Have It starring Christopher Eccleston for an accurate dramatisation of that tragic story.
In regard to The Blue Lamp from what I have read the Metropolitan police approached Ealing Studios to make a film about how the police force works and the dangers the "copper" on the beat has to face each day. Hence the creation of P.C. George Dixon - was there ever a policeman as nice as this? Well maybe somewhere but he was created as an almost mythic figure for the general public to believe in and almost revere - everybodys idea of the perfect allround nice "bobby on the beat".
Of later it led on to the long long runnning tv series in the 1950s called Dixon of Dock Green with the same actor - avuncular Jack Warner.

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[–] scotbpens 15 years ago

Shirley Ann Field proving was as poor a singer as she was an actress

- Gillian Hills made up to look like Bridget Bardot. Gillian Hills turned later in the 60s in Blow Up.

I don't know whether that was Shirley Ann Field's own voice or not, but the song she sang in the basement scene sounded bizarre -- like a combination of a pop ballad and something from a bad off-Broadway musical.

And I thought the teenaged Gillian Hills had a pretty strong natural resemblance to Brigitte Bardot, which was only accentuated by her long, wild blonde hair. Was she a hottie, or what? This girl's picture should have been in the dictionary next to the definition of "jailbait"!

All the universe . . . or nothingness. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] Lucy-Lastic 16 years ago

Ummmmm – I’m going to throw the cat amongst the pigeons here as I thought that “Beat Girl” was dire! I am building up a collection of pre/post war British B&W films and this is certainly one I won’t be keeping.

THE striptease I like (phwoar!!), but as for the rest of it – well, I found it was toe-curling embarrassment and could only laugh out loud at the closing scene. How they (especially Oliver Reed) managed to keep a straight face whilst speaking lines like ‘Daddio’ and ‘I’m gone man’ and all that other pretentious mumbo-jumbo etc. is beyond me.

Yes, the interior of the coffee-bar was interesting although I would have put it more in the ‘greasy spoon’ category and the exterior shots were good, but not enough for my interest. And as for the “Teds” – well, give me a break! They were about as scary as a load of sixth formers on a jolly jape, whereas the real Teds were vicious bastards. Even Christopher Lee I found a bit stilted.

If you want to see serious thuggery then watch “Brighton Rock” – Richard ‘Pinkie’ Attenborough made my hair stand up on end! (when I had some)

OOH-I-SAY

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[–] gonog998 16 years ago

Okay I agree that this film is not in the category of Brighton Rock which is still an incredibly powerful film (the final scene of Carol Marsh in the hospital walking off screen as the Pinky's voice sticks on the phonograph saying forever "I love you..." still brings tears to my eyes every time I see it). But its one of the films I love for its very faults. As you say its ludricous but thats what makes it fun to watch.
Who can forget David Farrer as the old fart throwing beatniks out of his house screaming "Get out! get out, you driveling jiving beatnik scum(!!??)"
Or Shirley Ann Field (lovely angelic face but uanble to act her way out of a paper bag)asking Adam Faith to sing - which he does only to have his onscreen voice be replaced by an obviously pre-recorded song complete with studio echo chambers!
As for the cheesy dialogue again its all part of the fun. One of my favourite lines is when Gillian Hills tells a man to stop talking - "oh turn off and fade out will you" - hilarious!
Great stuff - but like all "so bad its good" films its good for all the wrong reasons.
As for the striptease well enough said....

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[–] James_Byrne 16 years ago

This is an exceptional British film that captures the mood of the Beat Generation perfectly. You'll fall out of the armchair laughing at most of it, but Oliver Reed dancing is a sight to behold. I've just bought this classic film on dvd, and cried laughing all the way through it. Superb entertainment!

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] James_Byrne 16 years ago

Not bad, but it's not worth £10 by any means. Still, the film itself is not to be missed!

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[–] To_Be_A_Pilgrim 16 years ago

I knew it! There'll be heaps of comlaints all over the net within a month; par for the course with Orbit DVD's.

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[–] pineleigh 16 years ago

Excellent 10/10, uncut. See my little review under The UK DVD out in January 2008 on the Message Board.

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[–] stratus-59476 8 years ago

It is NOT Laya Raki. She is not in this movie unfortunately. The striptease dancer is Pascaline. She doesn't look anything like Laya Raki. I don't know how the misunderstanding occurred since Pascaline is clearly credited at the end of the movie. But more importantly it's perfectly clear that the dancer is nothing like Laya Raki.

On the upside, Pascaline's strip dance is indeed hot, though no full nudity. The Orbit DVD is uncut as far as I can tell. Other strip scenes are included.

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