That Kind of Girl (1963)

That Kind of Girl forms part of an interesting 1960s British film sub-genre, the serious-minded didactic sex melodrama. These movies were sexploitation movies. The sexual subject matter was certainly the selling point and that’s definitely the case with this movie with its “ripped from the headlines” sensationalistic posters and promotional material.

But given the draconian British censorship of the 60s these movies are ludicrously tame.

It was quite common for sexploitation movies to try to head off censorship problems by posing as important social documents warning society of the dangers of immorality. This is something you see in 1950s juvenile delinquent movies as well. In US sexploitation movies it’s always obvious that the dire warnings are totally insincere. In some of these British movies on the other hand you really do get the feeling that the disapproval of sex is absolutely real, that sex really is seen as dirty and wrong and that while the film-makers aren’t going to be able to persuade young people not to have sex they can at least ensure that they’ll be too riddled with guilt and anxiety to enjoy it.

That Kind of Girl very much adopts the tone of a public information film. It’s difficult to judge director Gerry O’Hara’s intentions since he was allowed no real input at all. He was merely hired to direct the script as written and had no involvement in the editing. Had he wanted to soften the judgmental tone of the script he was offered very little opportunity to do so, other than perhaps to influence the performances. When you consider his inexperience (this was his first feature) it’s probably unfair to blame him for the way the film turned out. It was never in any sense his film.

Some of these British sex melodramas from the early to mid-60s also have a lot in common with the British New Wave and the kitchen sink realism style, those dreadfully earnest movies that delighted in wallowing in despair.

That Kind of Girl is the story of Eva (Margaret Rose Keil), a stunningly beautiful eighteen-year-old Austrian au pair in London. She helps a married couple, the Millars, care for their three-year-old son Nicholas. Eva likes kids and she likes the little boy.

Not surprisingly Eva attracts a lot of masculine attention. Max (Frank Jarvis), a rather earnest student, has fallen for her in a big way.

Max has a formidable rival in the person of Elliot Collier (Peter Burton). Elliott is middle-aged but he’s a smooth talker and he projects an air of sophistication which is quite sufficient to impress an eighteen-year-old girl.

Max desperately wants to sleep with Eva but he has no idea how one goes about persuading a girl into bed. He seems to think that the best way is to be as whiny as possible. Elliott wants to sleep with her as well and he knows all the tricks of seduction. Elliott is very much the Villain, taking advantage of Eva’s innocence.

Then a third man enters the picture. Max has persuaded Eva to participate in a Ban the Bomb march but it’s not her scene at all. She heads back to London. Keith (David Weston) offers her a lift in his sports car.

Keith has his own problems. He is desperate to get his girlfriend Janet (Linda Marlowe) into bed but she insists that they must wait until they are married. It will only be a few years. Surely Keith won’t mind waiting? Keith does mind, and he finds that Eva is much more willing.

Then disaster strikes. Eva discovers that as a result of her outrageously promiscuous lifestyle (she has had sex not once but twice) she has contracted syphilis. This means that all of her many sexual partners (both of them) will have to be contacted. And the Millars will have to be told. The doctors tell Eva that you don’t just catch syphilis by having sex - you can catch it by kissing or by any contact at all. The Millars’ little boy might be infected.

Things become very fraught for everyone concerned. Especially for Keith, who has finally managed to get Janet into bed. And he’s managed to get her pregnant.

An interesting aspect of this movie is the timing. It was made in 1963. This was not yet Swinging London although that phenomenon was just around the corner. This is before the arrival of the mini-skirt. It’s also just before the discotheque era. This is still the period of smoky jazz clubs.

Max’s friends of his own age have more in common with the beatniks than with the new youth subcultures of the 60s. They’re very involved in worthy political causes (such as Ban the Bomb marches), they pontificate about philosophy and they take life very very seriously.

There are some interesting class aspects to the movie. Max is working class with middle-class aspirations. Janet and the Millars are thoroughly suburban and middle-class and achingly respectable. Elliott and Keith are prosperous middle-class tending to upper middle class. Eva, being a foreigner, is considered to be classless and therefore a dangerous threat. And, being a foreigner, she is of course totally immoral.

There’s an amusing tone of hysteria. If only young people would listen to the voice of authority none of this would happen. The doctor at the STD clinic tries to warn the young that if they have sex (or even kiss) outside of marriage then they risk ruining their lives and becoming a menace to public health and safety.

The police are portrayed in grovellingly favourable terms. You can always trust authority figures (parents, doctors, the police) and you should do whatever they tell you to do. They know best.

The movie doesn’t necessarily suggest that anyone who has sex outside of marriage is totally evil, but if you do succumb to temptation you can rest assured that nothing but misery and degradation awaits you. This is full-on kitchen sink realism misery. Really the best thing to do is just to throw yourself under a bus and get it over with since any attempt to find joy or pleasure in life is doomed anyway. Life is not about joy. It’s about duty, and learning to endure misery.

This is a truly terrible movie with a clumsy script and cringe-inducingly earnest performances. But it is an interesting time capsule offering a fascinating look at England in the period just before the Swinging London period, and before the Sexual Revolution. So it’s maybe worth a look for that reason.

Gerry O’Hara went on to make other depressing sex melodramas such as All the Right Noises (1970).

What’s fascinating is that right up to the beginning of the 70s British sex melodramas continued to preach doom and gloom, with movies like Her Private Hell (1968) and Permissive (1970). The latter may be the most pessimistic despairing movie ever made.