Good-Time Girl

source: Good-Time Girl

Moviecut—Good-Time Girl

Good-Time Girl

Would have liked Diana Dors to ask Flora Robson if she thought she was right to send Jean Kent to approved school.I'm certain this film was based on the real life Karl Hulton and Elizabeth Jones one of 1944.

This film appears to have been inspired by the "Cleft Chin Murder" (later dramatised in the 80s as "Chicago Joe and the Showgirl"), particularly at the end where Jean Kent's character teams up with two AWOL GIs to steal a car (and kill the driver); Flora Robson's magistrate comes across as the biggest hypocrite, sending a first offender to an "approved school" which abandons control to the biggest thug in the place (like the "Kapo" system used by the Nazis in the KZs!); if anything it's an indictment of the juvenile "justice" system in force at the time! Fortunately the "Approved School" system was abolished in 1988 after one too many sexual-abuse scandals, at the system's "showcase" school in Yorkshire!

The thought that people like Jimmy Rosso exist makes my skin crawl. While the movie was pretty good, I did find one glaring plot hole. This was during the hearing in juvenile court. It came down to he said, she said. She said that Jimmy had put her up to pawning the jewelry, and he said she had asked him to. This leaves reasonable doubt. The tie-breaker was the fact that she had used her own name when pawning the jewelry, which is consistent with innocence. Michael Farrell's testimony was disregarded in its entirety when he disclosed that he had sheltered the girl for the night. The magistrate took the word of the oily Jimmy Rosso over the word of the accused and that of Michael Farrell, who had a job and a flat, as opposed to Rosso, who had nothing, and was implicated in a slashing. Hard to believe it was like that, but I imagine it was.

When this film had been completed an official from the Home Office viewed it and as a result the Labour government tries to stop the film being released.The reason for this was the poor light in which the approved school system was shown.So the producers had to shoot the framing device with Flora Robson.It is clear that the authorities did not know what to do about teenagers.In fact this film shows Jean Kent's character in a favourable light and authority less so.After all because Kent has been beaten by her father and cant go home she is given 3 years in an approved school.So rather typical of the period Kent has a whale of a time till the last reel when she must pay for misdeeds.The last part of the film is based on real events which were portrayed in a later film with Emily Lloyd Pack.

Jean Kent plays Gwen--a poor girl from a screwed up family. Her sense of right and wrong are sadly diminished and her father is abusive. So, she leaves home at 16 and tries to make her way in the world. But, she always seems to hang out with low-lifes--the sort of jerks that are constantly preying on society. Eventually, she's caught for one of their crimes but she runs away from prison. At this point, she's a mess but she's not necessarily evil. But, soon after escaping, she begins to hit the bottle and becomes a very active and willing participant in a life of crime. And, in the process, she becomes a total mess. All in all, an entertaining film. And, while it could have been made as a purely sensationalistic movie, this one is able to tell a gritty story and yet not revel in it. Enjoyable and entertaining.