Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

MartinHafer 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.

bensonmum2 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.

bmacv Much as 1948's Whiplash was a cross-knockoff of two John Garfield vehicles (Body and Soul, Humoresque), Bad Blonde grafts Body and Soul to The Postman Always Rings Twice, then transplants the hybrid to alien English soil. At a carnival boxing concession, young Johnny Flanagan (Tony Wright, who looks like young John Kennedy) takes up the challenge and reveals himself as quite the pugilist. Concessionaire Sid James, a savvy judge of boxing talent, sees his opportunity to make a comback in the prizefight racket. He gets Wright signed up with rich old Italian promoter Frederick Valk, who on a recent tour of America has brought back Barbara Payton as a souvenir. When Wright catches a furtive glimpse of Payton smoothing a stocking along her thigh, he's struck tongue-tied. She's not so bashful, licking her lips as she rakes her eyes up his torso, stripped for the ring. Soon, under the guise of training at Valk's country manor, they're having clandestine clinches in the bracken. But, it apparently being true about leaving one's fight in the bedroom, Wright starts losing his timing, and, more urgently, an important match Valk arranges, thus jinxing his career. But Payton has money, or rather will have once her husband goes down for the count. She feigns a suicide attempt and a pregnancy, then dangles the possibility of murder. The diffident Wright, thinking the child is his, falls in with the plan...Somebody besides Payton must have been obsessed with Wright's body: The camera finds every opportunity to linger over it, in the ring and under the water, in trunks and towels and bathing briefs. Did this male-fixated aspect of the movie, originally titled The Flanagan Boy with Wright its title character, cause sufficient panic to have the movie renamed and remarketed? As Bad Blonde, it capitalizes on Payton's aggressive allures, soon to be available on the open market: The actress would drift into tabloid scandals, check-kiting and ultimately prostitution. Only four more films would remain before her last, Murder Is My Beat, in 1955. Twelve years later she would be dead of alcohol-related causes.

jim riecken (youroldpaljim) Johnny Flanagan is young fighter from the streets of Liverpool discovered by middle aged fight manager Giuseppi Vecchi. Vecchi has a young sexy gold digging blonde wife named Lorna who sets her sights on the handsome young Johnny. At first Johnny rejects her advances, but Johnny soon falls in love with her. Lorna tricks Johnny into thinking she is carrying Johnny's baby so she can convince him to knock off Giuseppie, which he reluctantly does. However, Giuseppi's brother, sister and mother arrive from Italy for the funeral. Giuseppi's mother, who resembles Marty Feldman in drag endowed with the evil eye, suspects Lorna is up to no good and tells Johnny Lorna is lying about being pregnant. She tells Lorna fate will catch up with her, and that it does.If all this sounds familiar, it should. THE FLANAGAN BOY (aka BAD BLONDE) is a reworking of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE with elements of a boxing drama inserted. The performances are okay, with Sidney James giving a performance that is much more than that. Overall, not a bad reworking of a familiar theme, but nothing special either.