Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Stray Cat Rock: Beat '71 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 27, 2020

Note: This film is available as part of Stray Cat Rock: The Collection.

If you're a fan of "happened on this day" trivia, here's a little example, though I'm just a few days late as this review is going live. There was a (very) little remembered musical that opened almost exactly 53 years ago to the day on October 23, 1967, called Henry, Sweet Henry, which was based on the charming Peter Sellers film The World of Henry Orient. Though it only ran for 80 official performances, it was ironically one of the more successful musicals in a disastrous year on Broadway which was documented in William Goldman’s book The Season. Goldman spends an entire chapter on Henry, Sweet Henry, and while he lays the blame of the failure of the show on critics (one in particular), he also brings up an interesting datapoint which is perhaps directly relevant to the Stray Cat Rock series of films. The creative staff behind Henry, Sweet Henry fashioned the show to highlight the talents of a young singer-actress named Robin Wilson, but when the show opened it was a featured player named Alice Playten who attracted all the attention and who ultimately received the musical’s only Tony nomination in a performance category. (Trivia fans will recognize Playten as the less than successful wife whose cooking creates digestive problems for her husband in some old Alka Seltzer commercials). At least somewhat similarly, the creative staff at Nikkatsu, reeling (with the rest of the Japanese film industry) from financial issues, attempted to “guarantee” box office for a planned series of films by fashioning them around singing star Akiko Wada. However, when the first Stray Cat Rock film opened, it was actually supporting player Meiko Kaji who attracted a lot of the attention and who in fact went on to arguably become the “face” of the franchise. The quintet of films attempted to cater to the so-called "youth market", and have a number of cinematic progenitors, but which might be compared at least somewhat to some of Roger Corman's biker films or even some of the Al Adamson "gang" efforts from more or less the same period. This is a re-release of an earlier Arrow release which also included DVD copies as well as a booklet, neither of which are included in this version.

Beat '71 continues the "girl gang" emphasis that at least partially defined this series, though in this case they may not just be tooling around on "hogs", but instead also be confined behind bars at the local prison. This time Meika Kaji portrays a character named Furiko, who is unjustly sent to prison on a trumped up murder charge meant to keep her away from her boyfriend. Meanwhile, Furiko's gang may have forsaken motorcycles for sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. This is another film that, much like its immediate precursor Machine Animal, seems to be making a play for 1971 "relevance" with communes and rampant drug use, but which never develops anything well enough to really resonate. There's also the same general lack of energy in this film that started to be more noticeable in Machine Animal.

Stray Cat Rock: Beat '71 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Beat '71 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.45:1. Since this release does not include an insert booklet, I'm not privy to any verbiage Arrow may have included about the transfer in its prior release of this title. As mentioned in the Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal Blu-ray review, I personally found the final two films in the series to have at least marginally more consistent presentations than the first three. The palette here is very nicely suffused throughout, especially in some of the brightly lit outdoor material, where things like blue skies pop quite agreeably. Detail levels are also generally very good throughout. Grain is once again on the gritty side more often than not, and spikes in darker moments especially. There is no major damage to report. My score is 3.75.

Stray Cat Rock: Beat '71 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Beat '71 features an LPCM Mono track in the original Japanese. This film's music may seem a bit anachronistic or at least dated for some, but it sounds nicely full bodied, and the film's dialogue and effects are also rendered with consistent fidelity and at times rather nicely wide dynamic range. Optional English subtitles are available.

Stray Cat Rock: Beat '71 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Arrow has packaged this with Delinquent Girl Boss, Wild Jumbo, and Sex Hunter on Disc One and Machine Animal and Beat '71 on Disc Two.

Disc One

• Wild Jumbo Trailer (1080p; 2:42)


• Sex Hunter Trailer (1080p; 3:16)

Disc Two

• Interviews are in Japanese with English subtitles:

  Yasuharu Hasebe (1080i; 28:37)

  
  

  Tatsuya Fuji (1080i; 30:06)

  
  

  Yoshio Harada (1080i; 33:06)

• Trailers

  Machine Animal (1080p; 2:48)

  
  

  Beat '71 (1080p; 2:37)

Stray Cat Rock: Beat '71 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Beat '71 falls victim to a situation many of the Stray Cat Rock films do, namely it, well, strays hither and yon without ever really getting anywhere. There's the semblance of interest here with a star-crossed love affair (something that harkens back to some of the other Stray Cat Rock outings), but there's definitely an energy deficit this time out. Technical merits are generally solid, and the supplementary package for the entire release appealing, for those who are considering a purchase.