The immediate question a film hound might ask himself about Beat Girl (a.k.a. Wild For Kicks) is: "What the hell are British cinema stalwarts Christopher Lee, Nigel Green, David Farrah and Oliver Reed doing in an early 1960s nudie about stripteasers and beatniks?"  The most pragmatic answer probably is: "Everyone's got to make a living."

And there, pretty much, lies the charm of this campy, British paean to teen rebellion.  Gillian Hills is an immense joy to watch as the flick's poster girl for confrontation.  A kittenish Bardot clone who will do just about ANYTHING to piss off her well-to-do-parents (Farrah and Adam), she's also the authoress of a delightfully impromptu striptease scene later on in the picture.

Some film encyclopedias have referred to this as Reed's first film (as a juvenile delinquent, he's pretty much confined to making impish facial gestures during party sequences); and a pre-Dracula Lee is also amusingly youthful as the Soho strip club owner who tries to entice Hills into taking off her clothes.  Professionally, of course.  Add some nudity and the twangy guitar music of John Barry (later of James Bond fame), and you have a perfectly seedy little concoction worth owning or renting.

What's significant in the scheme of things is the fact that Beat Girl appears for the first time on video in an "uncut" version.  A PG-13 rendition has been available for some time in the mail order market, but leave it up to Kin Video, a progressive video company that's been making tremendous strides in resurrecting lost treasures, to achieve the breakthrough.

For more info, contact them at www.kino.com.