Beat Girl (Wild for Kicks).

“Psychologists think most human neurosis comes from too much contact with other human beings” so says wealthy Paul Lindon (David Farrar) who has just brought his new French wife Nichole (French actress Noelle Adam) home following their wedding in Paris. The 24-year-old French beauty is only half the prominent architects age, something that strikes home when she meets Paul’s daughter, the rebellious Jennifer (Brigette Bardot wonnabee Gillian Hills), who immediately takes a dislike to her stepmother. The large austere family home that all three now share has few homely attractions. Jennifer describes it as a morgue with Nichole commenting on the houses barrenness - all of which does not help its repressive constraining atmosphere. 

 

Brigette Bardot wonnabee Gillian Hills.

The films narrative centres on the relationship between the two women and an area of London known as Soho. Nichole has a past to hide that involves an old friend called Greta (B-Movie actress Delphi Lawrence) who is the star performer at a strip club owned by her boyfriend Kenny King (Christopher Lee taking a break from Hammer Films). Jennifer’s frequents the Soho Coffee Bars where mainly spoilt little rich kids hang out listening and dancing to ‘cool decadent jazz’. They include the obligatory working class lad Dave (good use of pop singer Adam Faith in his first film, although his second movie, along side girlfriend of the time Carol White, Never Let Go (1960) had already been released), Tony, a general’s son whose mother was killed in the Blitz, who drinks to much (played by Peter McEnery also in his debut movie, an actor who had a prominent role in Victim in 1961 along side Dirk Bogarde) and Tony’s well bred girlfriend Dodo (Shirley Anne Field who famously played Arthur Seaton’s girlfriend Doreen in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960))   

 

A cool crowd in Chislehurst Caves.

Directed by French filmmaker Edmond T Greville Beat Girl (1960) or as it was known in the USA Wild for Kicks, is a product of its time with its dodgy script and terrible corny dialog. There were small roles for Oliver Reed and Carol White and a larger one for Nigel Green, best known for his role as Colonel Ross in The Ipcress File (1965) and who also appeared in a range of British movies including the thriller The Man Who Finally Died (1963) alongside Stanley Baker. Also making his debut was composer John Barry with his first movie commission. Incidentally the films soundtrack was the first to be released on a LP (a large piece of vinyl with a picture cover!). Filmed at the MGM-British Film Studios at Borehamwood Hertfordshire its location shooting took place in Soho London with club scenes filmed in the Chislehurst Caves in Kent, Southern England.

 

An audition takes place in a late 1950's Soho strip joint.... 

....where its owner the late Christopher Lee interrogates Gillian Hills.   

 This was another of these films’ that received critically bad reviews but was popular with cinemagoers. It had problems with the censor that delayed its general release. The setbacks were down to displays of topless nudity and strip tease along with scenes of juvenile delinquency involving public road racing and ‘playing’ chicken on a railway line!  The movie was eventually given an adult only “X” certificate; thankfully my copy of the DVD was the uncut version that certainly made it a more appealing piece of British cinematic history.        

Meet Mr Malcolm.

As I pointed out in my ramble about The Night Won’t Talk (1952) British film director Daniel Birt reverted to B-movies before his early death in 1955 at the age of 48 following a career in documentaries and feature films. Meet Mr Malcolm (1954) was certainly not up there with his best work.

Carrington-Phelps uses his charm on the maid. 

This pedestrian and cliché ridden story involves estranged husband and wife Colin and Louie Knowles played by Richard Gale and the familiar face of Sarah Lawson. Louie has asked her crime writer husband to investigate the disappearance of her boss Mr Durant, who she has worked for as a personnel assistant for just over a month. Mrs Durant (Adrianne Allen) does not want the police involved but she is forced to change her mind when her husband’s body is found at the bottom of a cliff, is it murder or just an unfortunate accident?  The local police, which consists of an Inspector and a police Sargent (played by the reliable Nigel Green who you will remember as Mayor Dolby in The Ipcress File 1965), have asked the crime writer to stay on until the inquest is over which means that he has now been virtually reunited with Louie. You may well asking if we have any suspects, well its obvious that Durant was murdered as Corsair Pictures are not going to make a film about a man who fell off a cliff! There’s Durant’s stage stuck daughter Andrea who married a man who her father never approved of, and there’s an old tramp called Whistler Grant (Meredith Edwards) that seems to live at the bottom of the garden. I think your realise that there’s more to our whistling tramp than meets the eye. Appearing late on in the story is Andrea’s theatrical agent Carrington-Phelps, an over the top performance from John Blyth who was seen in many TV programmes right up to the end of the 1980’s.

 

There's more to Whistler Grant than meets the eye!

This rambling murder mystery is both silly and corny; the main problem is the script with its lightweight characters.  Based on a novel by Roger East, who was a writer for 1960’s TV series Maigret, with a screenplay adapted by our old friend, Corsair’s in house screenwriter, Brook Williams. Overseeing the camerawork and the lighting was Hone Glendining, with the musical batten wielded by Frank Chacksfield and made at the Viking Studios in London. Not the best example of the B-movie genre.