Watch The Flanagan Boy For Free

Best movie of this year hands down!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good movie but grossly overrated

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Italian boxing promoter Giuseppe Vecchi (Frederick Valk) thinks he has found a young fighter, Johnny Flanagan (Tony Wright), that with some training could be a heavyweight champion. Vecchi's bombshell blonde wife, Lorna (Barbara Payton), whom he brought back from a trip to America, soon becomes a distraction. Flanagan finds success in the ring and has the confidence to compete in big money fights. Devious Lorna seduces the young fighter into an affair and convinces him there is a lot of money upon her husband's death. This beautiful blonde is bad, bad, bad. Also in the cast: Sidney James, John Slater, John Brooking and Marie Burke.

The curious "Bad Blonde" (1953) was allegedly based on the 1949 novel "The Flanagan Boy" (also the movie's UK release title) by Max Catto. Many reviewers have pointed out similarities between this movie and more famous film noir outings like "The Postman Always Rings Twice", but the work the Richard Landau/Guy Elmes screenplay most closely resembles is the 1952 novel, "High Wray", by Ken Hughes, which Hughes himself filmed in 1954. The basic plot is virtually identical. Unfortunately, Tony Wright makes a very poor fist of the central role (well played by Alex Nicol in the Hughes version), while Frederick Valk is so distressingly hammy and super-boring as the husband, all our interest shifts to the super-glamorous siren, so enticingly enacted by Barbara Payton (who certainly gives Hillary Brooke a run for her money). Sid James, who was so brilliant as the husband in the Hughes version, in this one has the Peter Illing role, which he plays with lackluster enthusiasm. Alas, the wife has no other suitor here but the stolid-as-a-stalagmite hero, so the Paul Carpenter role was turned into a boring and totally extraneous pal of the Illing character, here portrayed with tedious vitality by John Slater. And to top it off, instead of an astute, charismatic police inspector played by Alan Wheatley, we are now regaled with dull old George Woodbridge. Needless to say, aside from his loving close-ups of Barbara Payton, Reginald Le Borg's tired, static, stolidly routine, barely competent direction isn't a patch on the grippingly stylish, atmospheric effects so brilliantly achieved on much the same budget by Ken Hughes.

A young boxer (John Slater) is discovered and a nice boxing promoter, Giuseppe (Frederick Valk). However, the aging Giuseppe is married to a dame that is pure poison (Barbara Payton)--and it's obvious to everyone but sweet Giuseppe. Naturally, she gets her claws into the naive fighter and later she hatches a plot to kill her husband! This is a rather interesting example of British Film Noir. Despite having a very familiar plot of a wicked femme fatale that is reminiscent of such films as DOUBLE INDEMNITY and THE KILLERS, the film still manages to be very entertaining. Most of this is due to the excellent script that, despite familiar themes, has excellent dialog and pacing. Additionally, the mostly small-time acting cast generally did a good job--though I did think the character of Giuseppe was rather over-played.The most fascinating things about this film are the behind the scenes aspects. Ms. Payton plays a character that is pretty much the real Barbara Payton. While in her very, very checkered past she was never connected with a murder, Ms. Payton was a horrid individual and was essentially a true-life femme fatale! Having orchestrated a beating delivered by her lovers (Tom Neal and Franchot Tone), she then went on to substance abuse, shoplifting and prostitution before dying of liver failure and heart disease at age 39! What's more fascinating than this is the very final scene where another young boxer is shown heading towards the camera. This guy is the spitting image of Tom Neal!! He's not listed in the IMDb credits and IMDb doesn't list him as being in THE FLANAGAN BOY. I assume the producers of this film must have scoured high and low to find another actor like Neal in order to play off the negative publicity the Payton-Neal affair two years earlier! Well worth a look-the film is fascinating and the real-life Payton parallels are even more interesting.

Bad Blonde is a great title for a very average movie. It's also the first of the Hammer noirs made in the 1950s I've had a chance to watch. I've always been a fan of Hammer's horror output, so it's a treat to get the opportunity to see what the studio was doing pre-1957. The movie tells the (somewhat unoriginal) story of young up-and-coming boxer who gets mixed up with his promoter's steamy, blonde wife. She bends him to her will and uses him to get what she wants – even if that means committing murder. In a broad, general sense, Bad Blonde kept me entertained throughout. Director Reginald Le Borg keeps things moving at a good pace. The film looks good and the country estate set is a standout. And the movie features a wonderful performance from Sid James. The man carries much of the film on his own. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about some of the rest of the acting. The problems I have with Bad Blonde that make it just barely above average relate almost completely to the two leads. Tony Wright and Barbara Payton, are terribly unconvincing. For Wright, this was his first film, so I can forgive some of his stiffness. But for Payton, Bad Blonde was supposed to something of a return to glory. After only four years of making films, she was already washed-up by 1953. Her story may be a sad one filed with every possible form of self-destruction imaginable, but it doesn't change my opinion of her acting. With the exception of a few memorable moments, she doesn't come across as the smoldering sexpot she's supposed to be. To the contrary, I actually found her quite unappealing.Even though Bad Blonde didn't knock my socks off, I'm looking forward to giving the other five films in the new Hammer Film Noir Collector's Set a chance. At a minimum, and if for no other reason, it's interesting to see how the American B-noirs were translated to Great Britain.