"Wild For Kicks" (1960) d/ Edmond T. Greville

We'll see June off with a real vintage rebellious youth scorcher from the Brits, full of hep cats with acoustic guitars, chicken on the railroad tracks, "Hogs of the Road", and jazzy now birds who striptease for kicks. Many people have tried to finger the cause of the vein of delinquency rampant in the youth of the era, and the subsequent rise of subcultures like the Teds, Mods, Skins, Punks, etc. but maybe living for the moment, to the fullest, testing one's boundaries, reveling in the thrills, doesn't require investigation at all, since it's just the nature of the beast in question. But it sure makes for great exploitation fare, like tonight's movie...


See! Plaid Shirt (Ollie Reed) go over and out, Dad.
Besides being a few letters away from being a flamboyant Hollywood Square, Paul Linden (David Farrar) is a retired British architect returning home to his sixteen year old daughter Jennifer (Gillian Hills), with his new French trophy bride, Nichole (Noelle Adam) in tow. Jenny is not much for bonding with her young stepmother, and would much rather sneak her ass out to the local coffee house, and surround herself with the  kick-craving "In Crowd" of beatniks who think drinking and fighting is for squares, as led by Dave (Adam Faith), who lugs around a guitar he doesn't play and often interrupts the house band, breaking into lip synched pop tunes that are waaay out there, Dad. Plaid Shirt (Ollie Reed) suppresses (barely...as he desperately dives across a floor for a bottle of gin, only to get scolded by the straight-edgers) his desire to get knackered in keeping with the beatnik code and dances like one of those inflatable sky dancers you see flailing around outside used car dealerships, while Dodo (Shirley Anne Field) slings catch phrases of the day in a posh accent and doesn't mind a good necking party. Nichole, who's already familiar with the beat scene from her time in happening Paris, tries to bond with her stepdaughter, who, in the spirit of teenage rebellion, declares an all-out smear war on the well-meaning blonde.


I say, ra-ther good show getting out of that restrictive clobber and putting your exotic naughties on display, eh wot?
When Nichole shows up at the aptly-named Off Beat Cafe' and embarrasses Jennifer in front of her bohemian peers, she is recognized by an old washed-up-on-the-beach stripper named Greta (Delphi Lawrence, uncredited), leading the little bitch to investigate Nichole's seedy past at the near by gentlemen's club, as run by Greta's unscrupulous flesh peddling beau, Kenny (Christopher Lee). Armed with the knowledge that her loving stepmother may have turned a trick or two in the rough spots, Jennifer goes jihad for kicks, partying in caves, racing in the dark on rear projected country roads that are under construction, laying her head on the rear projected railroad tracks with a train approaching, holding a striptease party in her sprawling estate, and even returning to the strip joint for an employment consultation with Kenny, who unforgettably exclaims, "Someone down there likes me!". If he's willing to allow a sixteen year old to enter his adult business in the first place, how far is this touchy feely chicken hawk willing to go? You'll find out when you sit down to screen Wild for Kicks for yourselves. I'm over and out, dad.


"Cor, I've left me shift in Bristol!"
Gillian Hills, who also appeared in Antonioni's Blow Up (1966), you'll recall as one of the penis-pop-lapping devotchkas that Alex encounters while browsing music in A Clockwork Orange (1971). Adam Faith, who does provide two of his bubblegum tunes for the soundtrack (Field also sings "It's Legal"),  would turn up as the lead in 1971's short-lived Budgie series, and later in McVicar (1980) with Roger Daltrey of The Who. Farrar would give up acting just two years later. Diane D'Orsay and Pascaline also deserve mention for some choice on camera clothes-losing, sizzlingly sexy and provocative for their day, I'm sure. Overall, you won't do wrong to check this one out, with its wall-to-wall laugh out loud dialog, outrageous dance moves, and enticing eye candy. Three wops, among the best of its rabble-rousing kind. Recommended.


"Pack your bags, my child. I've got two tickets to Inappropriate-ville right here.", coos Kenny (Christopher Lee).