Watch A Boy, a Girl and a Bike For Free

good back-story, and good acting

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

I saw the film in our local cinema in Paddington in 1949, when I was nearly 13 and a keen cyclist. All of us young boys rated it highly, not least for the unique way the rear brake cable was routed to the brake via a small pilot tube within the bike's top tube. It was the first time that we had seen the young Diana Dors (I think she was 16 at this time) and a real head-turner. Honor Blackman spoke with a creditable Yorkshire accent and I particularly remember the scene when, after having a puncture, she asks John McCullum to "pass the patches and solution". Years later I met Miss Blackman when she was learning to fly at my flying club, Flairavia, at Biggin Hill in 1964 after having just played the part of Pussy Galore in "Gold Finger" - she couldn't remember saying those (to me) immortal lines from the 1949 film! I think the film has stood the test of time and is well worth viewing to remind us how we all lived.Peter Woodman.

Didn't Diana Dors look so nice before they dyed her hair and made her into some kind of English Monroe? She reminded me of a very young Lana Turner here. And John McCallum. Whoa, boy! Plenty of nice shots of him in those little shorts and bathers raised my rating of this up to a 9. This film isn't really "a" boy, "a" girl or "a" bike, it's many. Ada and her many admirers, Charlie and his Ginger, Susie and her Sam and David, vying for her affections.. There seemed to be a few minor plots going on before they struck the big one - Charlie being in debt and stealing a bike to cover it, naturally he steals one with unique brake wires that is easily identifiable, naturally David buys said bike and everything ends up pear-shaped - but it's definitely a lot of fun to watch!

It is always easy to make fun of fifties British films of this genre. If you have patience with it, this film has a lot of social and political messages to impart. The are not of any great relevance today, it is true, but at the time things and life were very different.It helps that the film was shot on location in Bath - the atmosphere helps enormously.

This film is a very good representation of a northern England mill town of post WW2. The characters although credible are not typical of the peoples found in the area at the time. This movie was filmed in and around my local town and as a historical aid it is valuable though not wholly reliable.