Thu 2 Jul 2009
THE SYSTEM. Bryanston Films, UK, 1964. Released in the US as The Girl-Getters, American International Pictures, 1966. Oliver Reed, Jane Merrow, Barbara Ferris, Julia Foster, David Hemmings. Director: Michael Winner.
There’s not a crime to be seen in this British-made movie, unless it’s the breaches of trust committed by a group of local lads who prey on the girls (birds, or thrushes) who come down from London and elsewhere to their small bailiwick on the sea every summer. Seduce and abandon, is their modus operandi, and their system is simple.
The leader of their lot, a chap named Tinker (Oliver Reed) has a job as a roving beach photographer.
He takes pictures of likely victims, obtains their local addresses, and distributes the same to the others of the group. When the summer’s over, they’ve left their ladies with lots of memories, perhaps, and – also perhaps – many of the memories are good ones. But lasting ones? Hardly ever.
No big crimes involved here, right? There are lots of swinging sixties beach party scenes, and the film is certainly not without lightness and humor, but no Annette Funicello beach blanket movie is this. If ever a film might be called Noir without even the hint of a murder being committed, it might be The Girl-Getters.
The question is, as it slowly dawns on Tinker, is who are the Takers and who are the Taken?
His pursuit of the wealthy Nicola (Jane Merrow) only shows how strong the “caste system” in England really was, and how futile it may have been to fight it. The one-set tennis match he plays with one of Nicola’s gentlemen friends, or tries to, and then tries to laugh it off, is a turning point that comes, one supposes, in everybody’s life – at which time they learn their limitations, and at the same time learn they cannot do anything about it.
The glowing embers behind Oliver Reed’s fiery, dark-shadowed eyes, and his memorable performance in this film, show that when the occasion presented itself, he was one of the finest actors of his day. Up until this movie, most of his work was done for Hammer Films, but I’d like to think that a lot of doors were opened to him afterward.
Not that The Girl-Getters was recognized as anything close to a work of art at the time, but it was among the vanguard of British films dealing with modern (if not mod) themes such as class differences and sexual awareness like Alfie and Georgy Girl (both 1966) that turned the world of film-making upside down.
I didn’t see The Girl-Getters back then, but that’s the era when I started to really enjoy what film-making was all about, rather than simply film-watching. Blow-Up (1966 as well, and starring David Hemmings, who also had a small role in this earlier movie) was a revelation to me, nor was I the only one who felt that way.
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:16 am
Of the mod films of the era one of my favorites in The Jokers, a caper film with Reed and Michael Crawford. Haven’t seen this one but will look out for it.
However, the tradition of Brit youth films went back at least to the late fifties when Patrick McGoohan, David McCallum, and Reed among others were making their early careers in them. Hard to imagine McGoohan in rock and roll movies, but there he was.
I don’t know why these don’t seem as exploitative as their American cousins, maybe it’s the accents and British reticence. Or maybe they were made by better directors and actors than most of the American brand. For some reason in the American version of these the actors were always too old and the plot points driven home with jackhammers.