Sorry, this movie sucks

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Back in 1965 a modest five-hander slipped under the radar and attracted some tasty ink. It was shot in Gloomcolor which is black and white with a fog filter and the storyline followed two couples supported by the Thames. All five actors were more or less unknown and the film was called Four In The Morning. One of the males, Norman Rodway, worked steadily and in that same year played Hotspur in Orson Welles Chimes At Midnight, the finest Shakespeare movie ever made. Joe Melia also worked steadily without setting the world on fire as did Brian Phelan. One of the two females was Judi Dench, making her film debut, and what happened to her is anyone's guess. The other female, was Ann Lynn and she impressed me but slipped of my radar at least so when I noticed she had a role in Baby Love it was sufficient for me to watch it. Alas, I lived to regret it. Very wisely two of the five writers, Michael Robson and Henri Safran opted to remain uncredited, the other three clearly have no sense of shame. This is the kind of film that gives drek like The Texas Chain-Saw Massacre a good name. All I can say is give this one plenty of the back of your neck.

After her impoverished, cancer-ridden mother (Diana Dors) commits suicide, schoolgirl Luci (Linda Hayden) is adopted by her mother's ex-lover Robert (Keith Barron), now a wealthy, married doctor living the high-life in London. Once in her new home, the deeply-disturbed girl gradually spirals out of control, teasing teenage son Nick (Derek Lamden), flirting with sleazy family friend Harry (comedian Dick Emery), allowing herself to get felt up in a cinema, taunting local lads by the river (and risking being raped for her trouble), whilst driving a wedge between her adoptive parents by awakening latent lesbian urges in her new mother! Phew!I found out about Baby Love while searching for films starring my favourite Hammer horror babe, the lovely Linda Hayden, and, boy, is it an eye-opener, the film undoubtedly exploiting the 15-year-old actress's burgeoning sexuality for all its worth, even having her stripping off for the part. But Baby Love is so much more than an opportunity to ogle jail-bait Linda in the altogether: part kitchen-sink drama, part psychological study, it's a skilfully told and ultimately tragic tale of an emotionally damaged, self-destructive soul who, due to her troubled upbringing, is unable to relate to kindness, instead exerting control the only way she knows how—through seduction; in doing so, she tears apart the already fractured lives of those who have tried to help her.Made in the late 60s, when movies deliberately challenged the establishment, Baby Love is about as subversive as it gets—a controversial piece of film-making that dares to push the boundaries in all directions, while deliberately making the audience feel just a little uneasy about what they are watching. As such, I found it extremely compelling viewing, and highly recommend it to fans of intelligent, provocative drama, as well as to those who find the idea of Linda Hayden as a naughty nymphet simply too tempting to resist.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

Luci, she is a slutty 15 year old English schoolgirl who comes home one day from school to find her Mum as dead as a door knob in the tub. You see her Mum has cut her wrists. Fortunately for Luci, her Mum's childhood friend is now a very successful upper-middle class doctor who has decided to take Luci home to his family (on a trial basis). And the seduction begins.It's a very slow and boring movie, but apparently some reviewers really get off on seeing an underage girl involved in these shenanigans. -- including stripping. I don't.I watched this mostly because I wanted to see Diana Dors who oddly is in the film for 2 seconds and has no lines!The underage girl went on to doing some Hammer horror movies and sex romp films.If you saw Pretty Poison, you know the plot of this movie. They are roughly the same film, only Dew Barrymore isn't as attractive.Frankly, I would have rather seen Taste the Blood of Dracula than this one.

Perhaps this British movie from the late 60s has virtues that were hidden from me. I didn't think much of it. (My opinion may have been tainted by the sleazy transfer to DVD.) It's the story of Luci, a fifteen-year-old girl whose mother has just committed suicide and who is taken in by her mother's former beau and his family -- a nice wife and a goggle-eyed adolescent boy.It's a pretty nice house and a comfortable place, though the father is uptight and snarls a lot. Luci exploits all the family members by suggesting she's sexually available, although there isn't a lot of nudity or simulated coitus. What it is, is a set up for a pornographic movie, but without the skin, just the rather ordinary plot. In skin flicks, a plot like this would be used as a device to hinge together the varied couplings. In an underground skin flick they'd have introduced the family mule or something. They'd bring in the chauffeur and the idiot son who is kept in the attic. Here, without the couplings, it's just dull.And it's not simply that the plot isn't exactly gripping. The only talent visible on the screen is that of Luci's adopted mother, who gives a seasoned performance. Luci herself -- that is, Linda Hayden -- could have been replaced by any reasonably good-looking kid who had stood out from the crowd in her high school plays. The editing is pretty clumsy too. Luci is groped by a neighbor in the local cinema but the camera doesn't seem to know how to handle the situation any better than the heroine. The cuts are confusing and Luci's response is a blank.It's not a terrible movie -- not a fell insult to anyone's sensibilities. It's just cheap and rudely made. A little more gratuitous nudity would have helped. However, others have apparently got more out of it than I did.