It was easy to read through the other reviews of this film, as there are only five! One of them seemed to have some kind of handle on the plot, although I still feel confused - where, from whom, did perky Eva the au-pair pick up her STD?

Can anyone help? Was it from old-enough-to-be-her-father Elliot?

There is, quite late in the film, a scene where he forces his attentions upon her in the street but it is brief and interrupted by a passing bobby who fails to catch the fugitive Elliot. He takes her to the station where she is interviewed and subsequently tested by medical staff and found to have syphilis. Does this mean that the scuffle in the street was actually a full-on rape? She is then given a note to give to the other boys she has had relations with. Both these boys, when they go for check-ups, are found to have contracted syphilis.

So... if she contracted the disease from Elliot, how could she have already given it to the other guys?

Oh well, maybe I missed something.

As for the film itself, it's not a bad snapshot of its time, although at this point I feel the need to point out that several of the other reviewers seem to harbour some misconceptions when they say that this film takes place at the height of the 'swinging sixties'. First of all, this film is from 1963. The swinging sixties did not really get going until at least 1964, started to swing in 1965 and was really swinging (in London that is) by 1966.

Before this, Britain was still locked in a sort of post-war drabness where young people wore pretty much the same clothes as their parents and had basically similar values.

The few who did not conform gravitated, according to this film, to idealistic 'ban the bomb' marches, or hung out at 'groovy' coffee bars or 'beat clubs'. But films about young people were not made by young people in 1963. They were made by an older generation, whose 'rebellion' had been, and still often was, listening to jazz.

This is borne out by the fact that, although the kids in this film are continually shown dancing the twist, they're not dancing to pop or rock 'n roll, but to jazzy music. Even when Janice tells her visiting boyfriend Keith that she has some "new records", a bunch of 45's (in other words pop singles) and she puts one on the record player, the music that we hear is not the Beatles, who were just emerging that year; not the Dave Clarke Five or the Searchers, nor even Cliff and the Shadows; no, the music is the same blaring orchestrated jazz that they play at the beat club.

The CND demonstrators are portrayed in this film as either childishly naive or pretentiously intellectual. Note the happy-sappy soundtrack music which accompanies the marchers as they are shown wending their way through a village.

Who is actually the "that kind of girl" in this film? Is it blond and leggy but initially virginal au-pair Eva (is she naughty or naive?) or is it prim and proper girl-next-door Janice, who consistently asks Keith to wait but finally 'gives herself' to him in an excruciating angst-ridden scene which is rather martyrdom than pleasurable discovery.

Yes, this film is a strange concoction of semi-permisiveness, chauvinism, conventional values, anti-casual sex invective with an old-fashioned romantic ending.

It's worth one viewing. However, if you want to see a REALLY GREAT British film that deals with somewhat similar issues then check out "Billy Liar" that came out that very same year.