Baby Love ** (1969, Linda Hayden, Ann Lynn, Keith Barron, Derek Lamden, Diana Dors, Sheila Steafel, Patience Collier, Dick Emery) – Classic Movie Review 9787

Director Alastair Reid’s 1969 provocative, racy melodrama Baby Love is an envelope-pushing mix of Lolita and Poison Ivy. It stars Linda Hayden in her film debut as Luci Thompson, a disturbed 15-year-old English schoolgirl sex bomb who causes a lot of bother among the folk in the foster home of her new family, and ends up seducing the wife.

Luci is adopted by a man who turns out to be her mother’s ex-lover, Robert Quayle (Keith Barron), now a wealthy, married doctor in London, and she turns out to be his illegitimate daughter. It is Swinging London, and she teases the teenage son Nick (Derek Lamden), flirts with sleazy family friend Harry Pearson (Dick Emery) and awakes lesbian urges in her adoptive new mother Amy (Ann Lynn).

Hayden makes a bold, striking debut, along with some top British TV talent showing how very underrated they were as character actors, in this highly controversial sexploitation film.

A stout but still glamorous Dors makes an all-too brief but welcome appearance as Hayden’s mum Liz, and steals the whole movie. But Ann Lynn, Keith Barron and Derek Lamden, as Amy and Robert Quayle and their son Nick, are excellent, and so are Sheila Steafel, Dick Emery and Sally Stephens as the Pearsons.

The cast are Linda Hayden, Ann Lynn, Keith Barron, Derek Lamden, Diana Dors, Patience Collier, Sheila Steafel, Dick Emery, Sally Stephens, Terence Brady, Marianne Stone, Christine Pryor, Yvonne Horner and Vernon Dobtcheff, with Timothy Carlton as admiral, Julian Barnes as crew member and Bruce Robinson as man in nightclub.

It is Hayden’s film debut, aged 15, and the first of her many nude scenes in several films. Hayden was picked out of 400 girls by producer Michael Klinger, who wanted an innocent-looking girl for his film.

Hayden acted in four film comedies with her one-time boyfriend Robin Askwith: Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974), Queen Kong (1976), Let’s Get Laid (1978) and Confessions of a Summer Camp Councillor (1977). She also acted on stage with Askwith in the bawdy farce Who Goes Bare. She is also remembered for Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) and The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), as well as the thriller Trauma (1976).

Baby Love is directed by Alastair Reid, runs 93 minutes, is made by Avton Film, is released by AVCO Embassy Pictures, is written by Alastair Reid, Michael Klinger and Guido Coen, based on the novel by Tina Chad Christian, is shot by Desmond Dickinson, is produced by Michael Klinger (executive producer) and Guido Coen, and is scored by Max Harris.

The film did well as the 11th most popular movie of the year in the UK in 1969.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9787

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