Girls Beware

Like its precursor Name Unknown (1951), Girls Beware is a trilogy of tragedies brought about by teenage girls' attempts at independent behavior. 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 L.A. 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