Summary

GIRLS BEWARE 1961 - Girls Beware is a trilogy of tragedies brought about by teenage girls' attempts at independent behavior Covers do's and don'ts in the babysitting situation Develops the problem of the 'PICK UP' and the girls who go with boys that are too old The first, a story of a young woman who accepts a babysitting job from a man whom she does not know, ends with a report that her body has been found on a lonely desert road As Norma Neufner (the policewoman who narrates the film) says, You can never find the right words to tell a mother her daughter has been murdered Judy hadn't done anything wrong, she'd only been careless The second part tells how two young teens, craving male attention, permit themselves to be picked up by two older boys they meet at the movies, boys who are strangers Sally's mother wisely forbids her from going out with the boys again, but Elizabeth rides up to the top of Lookout Peak (actually San Pedro Hill in Los Angeles County) with the two and pays a high price for her adventurism The third story concerns Mary and Robert, who meet at the Ah-Ha hamburger stand, an artifact of the early sixties LA landscape In this environment, kids enjoy a great deal of freedom, and it's precisely unrestrained freedom that will get them into trouble Mary meets Robert, who frequented the malt shop in his spare time, which was considerable as he had finished high school and didn't work Here he sought out the company of young teenagers because he wasn't accepted by those of his own age group Robert, a slacker par excellence, corrupts Mary In the words of Patrolwoman Neufner, They began to go to secluded places and their relationship became more intimate Mary knew things were getting out of hand because Bob became more and more demanding, but not wishing to lose his friendship, or the prestige she enjoyed from her friends from having an older boyfriend, she complied with his desires The camera rises from the couple making out on the ground to a shot of the trees and sky, somehow alluding to an unspeakable reality Then Mary found she was in trouble and had to tell her parents But now it was too late for advice and Mary had to be taken out of school and placed under the guidance of juvenile authorities