Wild for Kicks (1960)

An impetuous teenage girl, resentful of her father's new wife, tries to wreck the marriage regardless of the consequences.

Director:

Edmond T. Gréville

Writer:

Dail Ambler (story and screenplay)

Stars:

David Farrar, Noëlle Adam, Christopher Lee

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
David Farrar	...	Paul Linden
Noëlle Adam	...	Nichole (as Noelle Adam)
Christopher Lee	...	Kenny
Gillian Hills	...	Jennifer Linden
Adam Faith	...	Dave
Shirley Anne Field	...	Dodo (as Shirley-Ann Field)
Peter McEnery	...	Tony
Claire Gordon	...	Honey
Oliver Reed	...	Plaid Shirt
Michael Kayne	...	Duffle Coat
Anthony Singleton	...	Green Pants
Robert Raglan	...	F.O. Official
Nade Beall	...	Official's Wife
Margot Bryant	...	Martha
Nigel Green	...	Simon

Storyline

Paul, a divorced architect, marries Nichole, a woman from Paris. His teen daughter Jenny has fallen in with the English beatnik scene and likes to hang out in cave-like clubs to listen to jazz and rudimentary rock'n'roll. Jenny takes an immediate dislike to her step mother, who is not that much older than she, and goes out of her way to make life miserable for Nichole. When Jenny discovers that Nichole is a friend of one of the strippers from the dance hall across the street, she investigates and uses Nichole's sordid past to embarrass her father. Meanwhile Jenny attracts the lecherous eye of Kenny, the owner of the dance hall.

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Plot Keywords:

stripper | jazz | beatnik | letter opener | face slapping | 

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Taglines:

This could be your teenage daughter!

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 October 1961 (USA)

Also Known As:

Wild for Kicks

Filming Locations:

Old Compton Street, Soho, London, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Willoughby Film Productions

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

When Nichole (Noëlle Adam) had to slap Jennifer (Gillian Hills) in a scene, Jennifer kept anticipating the slap and turning her head prematurely, so on one final attempt Nichole went for it and caught her with a real hard slap not giving her a chance to pre-empt the slap.

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Quotes

Jennifer: Love? That's the gimmick that makes sex respectable, isn't it!

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Alternate Versions

The original UK cinema version was described by the BBFC as "the product of squalid and illiterate minds" and the film suffered extensive cuts to all striptease/dancing sequences and the scene where the teenage gang lies on a railway line. Later UK releases and TV showings were fully restored and uncut.

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Connections

Featured in Chasing Rainbows - A Nation and Its Music: Outsiders? Music on the Margins (1986)

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Soundtracks

Esméralda
interprété par Benny Bennett
disque ou enregistrement VOGUE PARIS

User Reviews

Certainly worth seeing

Here's an odd little number. The title suggests that this is one of those 50's JD films focusing on "beatniks". There were any number of films like this in America, none of which gave an especially accurate depiction of the "Beat Generation" (as represented by individuals like Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, and William Burroughs). Well, this is a kind of British version of one of those, and it turns out that lines like, "I'm over and out dadd-i-o," manage to sound even more ridiculous when delivered in a crisp British accent.

But aside from hanging out in coffee houses and dancing to jazz-style music, there's nothing particularly "beat" about the characters in this movie. Rather than a wild rebel, the lead girl (Gillian Hills) is more of a childish, bratty daddy's girl who is less than thrilled when her globe-trotting architect father brings home a much younger new bride from France. When she finds out her new stepmother was once acquainted with a stripper who works across the street from a coffee shop where she and her friends hang out, the younger girl decides to expose the French woman, but instead she gets HERSELF mixed up with the slimy owner of the strip club (played by Christopher Lee). By modern standards, of course, this is not very racy (even compared to similar movies in late 60's and 70's like "Daddy, Darling" and "So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious" where jealous teenage girls deal with unwanted stepmothers by seducing them into lesbian affairs!). But it was no doubt quite risqué for its time.

It's odd to see Christopher Lee in a role like this since he had just hit it big with "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "Horror of Dracula", but those were still pretty disreputable items back then too. And he's good as always. Gillian Hill was kind of like the British Tuesday Weld in that she managed to play a teenager for about fifteen years. Her most famous role though was as one of a pair of young models who shag David Hemmings rotten in "Blow Up". She's not bad either. And in the supporting cast are a young Oliver Reed and Shirley Ann Field, who later appeared together as brother and sister delinquents in the interesting Hammer sci-fi film "These Are the Damned". This is certainly worth seeing.