Cosh Boy

Plot synopsis:
Based on an original play by Bruce Walker, the film tells of the exploits of 16-year-old delinquent youth Roy Walsh (James Kenney) and his gang in post-World War II London.
The gang starts off by mugging women. Later, Roy becomes infatuated with Rene (Joan Collins), the sister of one of the gang members. Already having a boyfriend, Brian, she rejects Roy, to his fury. Later the gang beat up Brian. Roy menaces Rene, who eventually submits to him. When she informs him that he has made her pregnant, and urges him to marry her, he decides he wants nothing more to do with her.
Roy's mother, Elsie Walsh (Betty Ann Davies), is involved with Canadian Bob Stevens (Robert Ayres), who urges her to marry him so he can take Roy "in hand" before it's too late. Roy hates Bob.
Bob works as an assistant manager at the Palidrome dance hall, which becomes a target for the gang. Another member of staff appears on the scene who they shoot and wound.
Later that night, a mob of women arrive on the doorstep with Rene's mother, who adds that the police are on their way. Bob arrives, removes Rene's mother from the premises and decides to give Roy a thrashing - for his own good - before the police arrive in the belief that if the judge hears he has already received a thrashing, his sentence might be lighter, which will be easier for his mother to stomach. The police arrive just as Bob is brandishing his belt in readiness. Bob lets them in, and they ask who he is. He tells him he is the boy's stepfather, as "his mother and I were married this morning".
The leading officer congratulates him, then, seeing the belt in his hand, smiles, and suggests to his colleague that they go and arrest the other gang member first and come back for Roy later. Bob begins thrashing Roy as the scene cuts to outside and the mob of women listening to Roy's cries and shrieks for help. The detectives then walk away, into the night.

Tags: revenge, cruelty, violence

Review:
James Kenney, who I've seen in several movies, gives an outstanding performance of this young undisciplined hoodlum whose hysterical vileness and strutting arrogance propped up with a false bravado that finally cracks like a mirror at the end of the film....well, crime couldn't be shown to pay, could it?
And yes, the police of that time were quite willing to let parents or guardians punish their young 'uns if they thought it would do any good.
You wouldn't go running to your Dad crying about it for he'd give you another clip saying you must have deserved it.Social history tells us of how Britain, with four million men in uniform during the war years saw a generation of youth largely grow up without the guidance of fathers or older brothers.
Juvenile delinquency figures during and after the war went through the roof and with many de-mobbed soldiers bringing looted pistols and revolvers home with them there was a steady supply of weapons filtering down to the criminally-inclined classes, and resulting in a massive increase in crimes of robbery, assault and murder by those who were 'tooled-up' and who were quite willing to kill their victims rather than let them live to identify their attacker and possibly end up making the acquaintance of Mr Pierrepoint and his neck-adjusting service (which he performed...on a career-best 405 occasions!).For the time, and of the time, Lewis Gilbert's film stands up well in my eyes compared to the rose-tinted comedic films depicting similar disenfranchised youth such as the funny 'Hue and Cry'which I also enjoyed enormously.Taking a film out of its time-period to deliver judgement can't be right.
There were many films made back then (and even now) that are shoddily made with poor acting, dire scripts and non-existent production values that deserve all the brickbats they get, but 'Cosh Boy' isn't one of them....in my humble opinion..
And as the stepfather Robert Ayres gives the best performance as a piece of wood I've seen since the log in Twin Peaks.
Don't think I've ever seen a film before where the fuzz make themselves scarce for ten minutes so stepfather can give his stepson a bloody good thrashing!
But...making allowances for the conventions of the time, you can tell it was made by someone who knew what he was doing, and several things kept me watching: the location shots of blitzed London; Joan Collins, who  was rather affecting given the limitations of her role; and James Kenney as Roy the hoodlum was really good - overwrought, sure, but convincing nevertheless.
The beginning shows them running down a high street and I suspect this was the main street in Hammersmith.I have just bought it for my Mum's 70th birthday as she had never seen the film due to it being an X and of course, there were no DVD/Video recorders in those days!Feels a bit over acted in places, but an interesting historical document of life in the 1950s.
Strictly speaking I would class neither of these two productions as 'film noir' - more social problem and crime films.
THE SLASHER is actually the American renaming of good old COSH BOY, a title which has occasionally surfaced on UK's C4.
It's the main reason why I, and I suspect others, will want this disc - a minor cult item featuring a memorable central turn for James Kenney - who also appears, to less effect in another recent release (from the UK this time) GELIGNITE GANG.
Kenney plays Roy, the anti-social, selfish, cunning and manipulative thug, about whose short career as a petty criminal the film is about.
Highlight of the film is the corporal punishment meted out to Roy by his new stepfather in the final scenes - something strikingly and splendidly un-PC: much more more intense and yes, satisfying in effect than any amount of more establishment-accommodating endings familiar from other films of this ilk.
I'm no supporter of the belt, but by God you will be crying out for Roy, who has betrayed his girlfriend (a very young Joan Collins) his mother, his grandmother and almost everyone else, to get the taste of it by time of the end!
Those who criticise some of the acting (viz: one of Roy's stooges, a particularly whining individual) miss the point - this is British exploitation at its best.
In the tradition of Richard Attenborough in Brighton Rock, James Kenney is mesmerizing and unforgettable as the dirty little punk who with his gang robs little old ladies of their monies.If anything Kenney is far more loathsome than Attenborough, not even a hint of surface charm.
In fact the hardest part of the film to take seriously is having young Joan Collins surrender herself and her virginity to this creep.
Possibly Lee Marvin in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one.For those of us Yanks for who the film was retitled The Slasher for release by Lippert Pictures here, a Cosh is a kind of truncheon used to whack someone into unconsciousness or beat them severely.
She has a new man in her life, American Robert Ayres playing a Canadian, who thinks the kid just needed a good attitude adjustment that was never given him by a father who is not in the picture.
In the end Kenney has to account for all his many sins.Besides a very young Joan Collins viewers should take note of the two Hermiones in the film, Hermione Baddely as the mother of Collins who wants to Cosh the Cosh Boy after she finds out what Kenney has done and Hermione Gingold playing a not disguised at all prostitute who is a friend of the Davies/Kenney family.
Cosh Boy is still quite a riveting piece of film making and Kenney is unforgettably evil..
I note that some reviewers thought the acting was poor however I found that the actor who played the lead role was brilliant, I grew up on the wrong side of town so I am familiar with what these creatures are like, these types are universal regardless of time and place.That actor really nailed the archetype snivelling, gutless psychopath, I am surprised that this actor did not goonto bigger and better roles.
And the young Joan Collins, what a beauty!.
'Cosh Boy' was made at a time when society was preoccupied with youth.
'Cosh Boy' is a reflection of this moral panic and many newspapers carried stories about 'cosh boys' going out mugging old ladies.Lewis Gilbert's film follows the rise and fall of Roy Walsh a young thug from Battersea.
Ian Whitaker who plays Roy's educationally backward sidekick Alfie collins is staggeringly bad.
The film follows the struggles of Roy's widowed mother Elsie who is unable to control her son supposedly because of the absence of a man in the house.
The grandmother also lives with Elsie and knows that Roy is no good, she represents the older wiser generation that believed in discipline and family life with two parents.
It advocates that women should follow their prescribed gender roles as housewives and mothers, leave the hard stuff like discipline to men.
The most nauseating line in the film comes from Grandma Walsh 'They don't know what hard work is these days.
'Cosh Boy' has dreadful scripts and abysmal acting.
The only attractive feature of the film is the pretty 18 year old actress Joan Collins (whatever became of her?).
It suggests that manly discipline is needed to help in the rebuilding of the post-war family, otherwise working-class youths will turn into vicious, nasty 'cosh boys' or poor hapless single mothers.
Black market crime, and other offences, was rife in wartime BritainWhat makes this film funny, apart from the atrocious acting, is that in hindsight we can see how ridiculous some 'moral panics' are.
The people that might laugh at the caricatures in this film might still go along with existing panics in Britain today - such as 'mad cow' disease, 'road rage', chlamydia teenage alcoholism etc.
The acting is so bad it is hilarious and I'm sure this is one film that Lewis Gilbert would not want to be reminded of..
I have yet to see more wooden acting -- just standing there and saying the lines!If I had been the Cosh Boy I would have just slugged my stepfather on the jaw and run away.
This movie made when Western civilisation was going to be torn down by the outbreak of Juvenile Delinquents, and the pimply youth were building forces in the US as well, so follow Cosh Boy with "When Youth Runs Wild" (1945).
The US film is not as funny as the UK one but still has all the traditional delinquent-syndrome markers.Cosh Boy is a real hoot, especially the strange pitch of their voices or, perhaps this is the what delinquency does to the vocal cords.
Making their coshes in trade classes at school was a goody, what or where was the teacher while these illegal instruments were being turned out.
"Cosh Boy" (also known as "The Slasher") is an incredibly Oedipal picture that takes advantage of post-war worries that the youth were running amok.
It begins with Roy Walsh and a friend committing a mugging (a 'cosh') and soon getting caught.
They are placed on probation and Roy acts very contrite and decent in court...and almost immediately after, he's planning his next crimes!
In the process, Roy discovers a pretty young lady (Joan Collins)...who he treats like dirt.Through the course of the film, Roy continually ups the ante--with his criminal behaviors getting worse and worse.
He clearly is without a redeeming quality...though his co-dependent mother makes excuses for him.
The only one who sees right through the punk is his mother's boyfriend...he knows that Roy needs a very firm hand.
See this weird little film.James Kenney is quite good as Roy--snarling, nasty and incredibly two- faced..as well as hopelessly in love with his mother..though he and his mum don't seem to realize it.
My biggest complaint, however, is that the film tries to say that who Roy is turns out to be because he has a super-permissive mother.
Perhaps this was because the film talks about teenage pregnancy and is a tad violent...all of which would lead to a PG or PG-13 rating today."Get up you little rat...you're making me sick!!!"--best line in the film..
I don't know what's odder about this expose on British juvenile delinquency issues in the 1950's: the strange helium voice of James Kenney as the lead delinquent, or the fact that Joan Collins' mother here is played by the cockney Hermione Baddeley.
It's obvious from the start that Kenney and his cohorts are up to no good when they stalk a drunk little old lady staggering home from a pub.
For a Yank like me to get into this, it took many years of film research understanding various British dialects and catching onto little bits of British culture.
But in my years of film study, I have realized one thing: British filmmakers seemed to take more chances from an early age and thus, many of their films seem far advanced over American movies of the same period.Joining Miss Baddley here (but unfortunately not in any scenes together) is the nearly unrecognizable Hermione Gingold, with platinum blonde hair and excessive jewelry, only identifiable when she speaks.
Collins, very soft and feminine here, comes off closer to a young Jean Simmons or Audrey Hepburn rather than the vixens she played a few years later in biblical era epics like "Land of the Pharaohs" and "Esther and the King", and certainly as far from her "Dynasty" character of Alexis Carrington as you can imagine.
Was rather hoping that the battered Roy would seize his gun, wound Bob,and do a runner-the cops' explanations to their superiors would have been good for a laugh!
Oh-Joan Collins as teenage virgin.VERY old film!.
COSH BOY is an intriguing mix of social drama and crime thriller, released in Britain in 1953.
It deserves credit for tackling the subject matter of juvenile crime and delinquency in a stark and realistic way, avoiding sensation for the most part in its depiction of unpleasant events that spiral out of control and affect the lives of those involved.
The film was shot by future Bond director Lewis Gilbert, who exhibits a good control of his medium even at this early stage of his career.James Kenney gives a thoroughly believable turn as the film's protagonist, one of the most unpleasant in all of 1950s cinema.
The exasperated family members are all well and good, but it's the youthful figures who stand out: an impossibly young Joan Collins as the naive girlfriend and Johnny Briggs as a callow gang member.
Like the infinitely better "The Blue Lamp","Cosh Boy" is an Issue Picture.There the resemblance ends.Whilst the former was a noir masterpiece,one of the most seminal of all 50s British pictures,the latter is a catchpenny bandwagon-jumping appallingly made load of tosh made to cash in a genuine fear of "Teddy Boys","Cosh Boys" and the like that held the post-war public in its sway.
Because the fact that the movie is awful should not be a reason to dismiss the fears of the audience who went to see it.My father who'd fought the Italians and Germans in the African desert was a firm believer in corporal and capital punishment,as were many of his generation.No amount of sophistry will deny the fact that now our country is a far more dangerous place than in 1953 when he could happily walk the dog to the newsagents with a better than average chance of getting home unscathed.
The movie "Cosh Boy",terrible as it was,brought the issue of violent youth out into the open,much the same as "Cathy come home" did for the disenfranchised 15 years later and the masterly "Scum" raised the profile of the treatment of young offenders.
So..."Cosh Boy" is a lousy movie with dreadful acting and all put together for what it would cost nowadays for a haircut at Trumpers......
After the war Britain went through a J.D. crisis and some fine films tried to give understanding to the problem ("The Blue Lamp" (1950), "Violent Playground" (1957), "Beat Girl" (1959)).
While "Cosh Boy" was a bit heavy handed (literally) at laying the blame on absentee fathers - at least it tried to find a solution.
It was also the first British film to receive an X certificate.Two young chaps follow an inebriated granny onto a vacant lot, "cosh" her and take her purse.
So begins "Cosh Boy", a rather wooden film that attempts to explain the rise of juvenile delinquency that happened everywhere, after World War 11.
The boys, Roy (James Kenny) and Alfie (Ian Whittaker) are caught and sentenced to one year's probation.
Roy manages to put on a good performance for the magistrate but he is the brains behind the gang and has no intention of stopping his unlawful activities.
His mother announces her intention of marrying Bob Stevens and Roy goes crazy - says if she marries Bob, he will kill him!!!Roy goes to a local dance and meets Rene (beautiful Joan Collins).
Roy may have his mother hoodwinked - but not his gran, who has her own ideas about how he should be bought up.
When Roy's mother and Bob come back from a date, Gran is distraught - her life savings (which she kept under her bed) are gone, and she knows who is responsible.
Bob waits until Roy comes home and gives him a sample of what life will be like when he marries Roy's mum.
She then tries to kill herself by jumping into the river but, fortunately, is saved, a sadder but wiser girl.Things start to unravel for Roy - he has got hold of a gun, which he uses with disastrous results in a bungled robbery.
Comparing this film to "The Blue Lamp" is silly.
I wouldn't describe the acting as amateurish and the film is not as bad as some reviewers make out.
Roy Walsh is a young delinquent, who makes a pound or two out of coshing old ladies and stealing their handbags.
They include a simpleton; there's a character played by a young Johnny Briggs, and a strange character who looks and talks like a forty-year-old.Walsh is a nasty character, who displays no remorse.
He has an affair with the simpleton's sister (Joan Collins), whose accent slips like a 4-man bobsleigh.
There is no explanation why Walsh is like this.Walsh's gang upgrade from coshing old ladies to using a revolver to rob the takings at a wrestling match.
But first Walsh is caught by his brand new Canadian stepfather.
This is one of several films that looked at post WW2 juvenile crime.
But "Cosh Boy" is one of the worst films I have seen.
It is ridiculous that eight years after one of the biggest incidents of violence and vandalism known to humankind, all this film could offer as a remedy for youth crime is walloping a kid with a belt.
How pathetic.Watch out for Sid James playing a station officer in a short scene..
Difficult to realise that this was amongst the first films released with an X certificate.It was probably to ensure that impressionable teenagers did not have the opportunity to copy the antics of the characters in this film.Joan Collins shines amongst the dross.Having seen her boyfriend is beaten up by a gang.She then goes with the leader of the gang who treats her roughly.He also has a huge Oedipus complex,and almost seems to be doing a rather poor impersonation of James Cagney in White Heat.There are also parts of this film which are reminiscent of Brighton Rock and The Blue Lamp.The gang stages a raid on a wrestling arena which goes wrong.The leader shoots a member of staff.Subsequently they have a discussion about who would go down for the crime which clearly reflects the Derek Bentley case.The climax is so overblown it is quite laughable.