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Beat Girl (aka Wild For Kicks) (1960)
Mad about beat?
This wasnt just a tagline on a movie poster.
This was the smoking pistol that proved Barry had arrived.
In return, Barry was enlisted to compose and arrange this score for Faiths first movie,Beat Girl.
You were thusly instructed to get your groove on.
Indeed, Barry would later describe it as a poor mans James Dean.
But there were thrills to be had.
In this twilight world of striptease and sauce by numbers, the most exciting numbers were provided by Barry.
Like an Alka-Seltzer dropped into a bottle of Bollinger, Barry was off and running.
Forbes himself would later describe the composer as being light years ahead of the pack.
The score underpins the macabre and psychological elements of the film, providing a heartrending interpretation of domestic instability.
He merges two musical cultures into one authentic sound.
He was hungry for an epic.
Subtlety and suspense are employed intelligently alongside the punchier elements of the instrumentation.
Barrys desire for cultural synthesis required honesty, consideration and risk, and the risk paid off.
Incidentally, themes fromZulucan also be heard in his score for 1995 filmCry, The Beloved Country.
Given the frequency with which the film appears on UK TV, its easy to underplay how greatZuluis.
Its an incredibly intense siege movie thats elevated by the quality of Barrys score.
Other highlights:
What Do You Want?
It holds up pretty well fifty years later.
This should be a nonsensical tumbling of style over substance, but it truly captures something sublime and intoxicating.
