A British exploitation movie

Not too long ago I did a post on the exploitation movie Mad Youth. A movie that tries to make similar warnings, only coming from Britain, is Good-Time Girl.

A very young Diana Dors shows up in the framing scenes at the opening and closing. She plays Lyla Lawrence, a teenaged girl who is brought before Judge Thorpe (Flora Robson) for getting into the sort of trouble that teenaged girls on the way to bigger trouble get into: being out way too late and hanging with the wrong crowd and stuff. Judge Thorpe decides that the best thing for Lyla would be to give her a cautionary tale about a girl who was in Lyla's situation not too long ago, but who didn't straighten her life out and suffered serious consequences as a result. Cue the inevitable flashback....

Jean Kent is the real star of this movie. She plays Gwen Rawlings, a 16-year-old girl who lives a lousy life in the years just after World War II. She's needed to get work to help the family make ends meet, working at Pottinger's pawn shop and dreaming of better things, such as getting away from her nasty father. Since people pawn nice things at the shop, Gwen decides one day that she's going to "borrow" one of the pieces of jewelry. Unfortunately, she gets caught out before she can return it and gets fired, which also results in a beating from Dad. So, she runs away.

Gwen gets a room on the top floor of a rooming-house opposite Jimmy (Peter Glenville), who works at the sort of club you wonder if it's really fully legal. In any case, Jimmy comes across as a bit of a shady character but claims he can get Gwen a job based on her looks. Max Vine (Herbert Lom), isn't quite trusting of Gwen's insistence she's an adult, but also recognizes her legs can get her tips. Red (Dennis Price), who plays in the band, kind of takes Gwen under his wing although he's married. Jimmy gets jealous, leading to his framing her for a crime she's technically guilty of if only out of ignorance, in pawning some stolen jewels.

For this, Gwen gets sent to the British version of reform school and finds that it's got the same sort of hierarchy you'd seen in the women's prison in Caged or in a boys' reform school. In any case, the place sucks and she thinks about running away. Eventually, she does escape, and goes looking for Max who has opened a new club. This isn't the best idea, although it's not as though she's got too many other options. She gets in a car with one of the patrons for a drive, but this results in a hit-and-run, and a downward spiral that we know is going to end badly or else Judge Thorpe wouldn't have a story to tell Lyla at the beginning of the movie.

Although Good-Time Girl has all of the plot stylings of an exploitation movie or Hollywood B morality tale, it's actually a surprisingly good movie. It's on par with a Hollywood programmer: better than a B movie, but clearly not an A film. The quality stems from the movie being a straight drama without trying to be lurid or over-the-top in the way that the Hollywood exploitation movies were. It's also got a pretty good performance from Kent. Definitely catch Good-Time Girl if you get the chance.