Boys in Brown

At the time of making this film Borstals had inmates up to the age of 23, so the actors look right for the parts they play. One of the inmates in the film is married and has 2 children so the critics who say the actors are too old are wrong.

If you've ever wanted to see Dirk Bogarde in shorts then this is the film for you!! (Today's generation of young offenders would probably regard being made to wear short trousers cruel & unusual punishment in itself; and I still haven't decided yet who looks more grotesque in shorts, Alfie Bass in this or Roman Polanski in 'A Generation'!)

One of the final gasps, incredibly enough, of Gainsborough Pictures; and based, even more incredibly, on a play by Reginald Beckwith, 'Boys in Brown' is yet another stern warning to the youth of postwar austerity Britain to stick to the straight and narrow or face severe consequences.

Three of the cast were promptly reunited in 'The Blue Lamp'; Jack Warner & Jimmy Hanley as coppers, Bogarde as the zoot-suited spiv taught an even harsher lesson that crime is a mug's game.

Richard Attenborough is the naive young "Jackie", in love with his girl "Kitty" (Barbara Murray) but prone to getting into bad company. It is after one such escapade that he finds himself sentenced to three years in borstal. Fortunately for him, the governor (Jack Warden) believes firmly that the purpose of these institutions is to rehabilitate and so he is inclined to try and help the man; unfortunately his habit of falling for the wrong 'uns continues as he soon becomes the quarry of the duplicitous "Rawlins" (Dirk Bogarde) and his gang of would-be escapees. The film follows the path he takes to try and escape, not just from his incarceration, but from the self-perpetuating cycle of scenarios that make it impossible for him to break free and make a clean start with his life and his love. It sags a bit, this, but overall the performances are convincing and it does evoke a sense of just how despairing times must have been for many in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Jimmy Handley chips in well as another of "Rawlins" pawns, also do Thora Hird, Alfie Bass and Michael Medwin, too. There is a little too much dialogue but it is still worth a watch.

Amazon notwithstanding, a DVD of this is available and I recently ran across it. The story is pretty basic and not very believable but you do learn quite a bit about the time in which it happens. Unlike the US where kids were already defining their own style of dress, their own music and gathering places devoid of adults, the British kids dress like miniature adults with clean white shirt, tie and dark sport coat....even when robbing stores! You get the feeling that success for them means getting what the adults already have rather than renouncing the world of their elders. And they are comfortable hitting a pub for a drink. It's no big deal. I guess the British drinking age is a bit lower than that in the US. But while the British world might have welcomed the youngsters into the fold, the British film industry took things to a ridiculous extreme; all the borstal "kids" are old enough to be guards themselves. Check the biogs of the actors. Several of them are in their 30's, playing teens. Hanley, playing the part of Bill Foster, is 32 and sports an enormous belly. He is almost old enough to have a son of his own in a borstal. Attenborough and Bogard are a little less obvious, but not much. Apparently Rank, like American International and Roger Corman, had difficulty finding suitable juvenile actors and simply used adults dressed as kids. After a while you get used to it since the teens act like little adults anyway. Actually a rather interesting picture from a historical aspect. If you can find it.

This was one of the last films from Gainsborough before the studio was shut down as a Rank economy measure.It is actually quite a good and effective film reflecting the mood of the time.The biggest problem being the shoehorning into the boys roles of Rank contract actors.This despite the fact that there were some good teenage actors such as Harry Fowler and Anthony Newley.Bogarde is seen here just before the Blue Lamp which would propelled him to screen stardom and Jack Warner to TV stardom .This film though is far removed from Scum.