Permissive & That Kind of Girl (DVD)

Permissive

A gritty artifact from Britain's 1970s counter-culture, PERMISSIVE is a tragically moving account of a young woman's initiation into the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Suzy (Maggie Stride) arrives in London without a penny, to visit her school friend Fiona (Gay Singleton). Fiona soon introduces Suzy to the life of a groupie, filled with short-lived highs and lingering, jealousy-fueled lows. After a series of indolent affairs, Suzy gets dumped for a band's tour, and has to fend for herself on the streets. Shot on authentically seedy locations, with a psychedelic soundtrack provided by cult rockers Comus and Forever More, PERMISSIVE is a powerful, de-mythologized look at the end of hippie-dom.

That Kind of Girl

London is in full '60s swing in THAT KIND OF GIRL, a shamelessly entertaining exploitation film that revels in sexual titillation while moralizing about the dangers of STDs. Retitled Teenage Tramp in the U.S., it follows blonde bombshell au pair Eva (Margaret Rose Keil) as she is pursued by a variety of tongue-lolling men, from an aging playboy to a protesting college kid. She twists the night away with them in a variety of dingy clubs and striptease palaces, until a checkup reveals that she has contracted VD. Shocked and awed, Eva tries to mend her ways, and tells each of her nighttime amours the truth, with explosive results. From the "Ban the Bomb" marches to crisp campuses and conservatively domestic homes, THAT KIND OF GIRL is an evocative and overheated vision of 60s London that has to be seen to be believed.