Barely stands up as a film worth much attention on its own but is interesting for various reasons. There is a point about halfway through when two lads are speaking of their childhood, born down in the underground during the war and playing on the bomb sites that makes it perfectly clear this is about the generation immediately before the post war baby boomers. There are rockers, well teds but no mods as yet and big no-no of the day was striptease and games of 'chicken' the big thrill. Gillian Hills really was only 15 when she starred in this. Probably her greatest claims to fame were appearing in Clockwork Orange and being 'The Brunette' opposite Jane Birkin's 'The Blonde' in Blow-Up. Shirley Anne Field is great but is lumbered with a terrible song miming sequence towards the end. She would make Peeping Tom and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning the same year being quite 'the look' for several years. Christopher Lee is still on a very slow journey to stardom and not wonderful in this while a 19 year old Oliver reed almost ruins his career with some incredible over acting in a near nothing part. The Chislehurst Caves sequence is probably the best but there are some decent Soho scenes even if most of them are studio bound. Well worth seeing but more from an historical point of view than a dramatic one.
Review of Wild for Kicks
