Cosh Boy

'Cosh Boy' (1953) - Lewis Gilbert.

Highly regarded writer/director Lewis Gilbert's gloomy, surprisingly gritty expose of violent opportunist street crime is certainly no less hard-hitting an experience today than upon its initial somewhat more controversial theatrical release in 1953. Due to Gilbert's tough-edged feature's rather blunt, relatively unfiltered examination of criminality it was granted an 'X' certificate, its abrasive depictions of anti-social teenage delinquency, petty larceny, violent street crime, and the increasingly criminal machinations of the gang's milk-faced, gimlet-eyed, plainly sociopathic gang leader Roy Walsh (John Kenney) and his greasily subservient entourage of shiftless, pallid-looking hoodlums were, perhaps, a little too vividly rendered for the time!

The existentially bleak 50s melodrama 'Cosh Boy' is a consistently fascinating thriller, being a remarkably grim, wholly unsympathetic view of teenage terror-twerp 'Walshie's' extraordinarily callous crime spree, his ill temper and frequent immorality seemingly boundless, robbing his own family, dispassionately getting his innocent girl (Joan Collins) in the family way, and fatefully shifting from a leather-bound cosh to a deadly firearm in the film's frantic, razor-edged, nerve-strafing climax! There are especially frank moments in the punchy narrative when it is almost as though Gilbert is foreshadowing the socially conscious, agitprop cinema of Alan Clarke and Ken Loach, since his intense young protagonist Kenney roils with the similarly splenetic rage of a young Gary Oldman! 'Cosh Boy' is far more than a nostalgic cinematic curiosity, aggressively maintaining a dark febrile energy undiminished by time with the breathtakingly beautiful Joan Collins expressing a heart-wrenching fragility as the naïve Rene Collins.

After reading some of the extremely negative reviews I feel I have to add my tuppence worth. I watched this film recently and I can't believe some of the reviewers watched the same movie. Bad acting? I couldn't see any. All the actors were stage-trained and while I could see some of that reflected in several of the performances it didn't detract from, but rather added to, the underlying documentary approach to a subject that was much in the public and political mind at that time (and still is today).

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. Parents would insist to the policeman, "Leave him to me!" if he brought shame on the house...I know! Alternatively the policemen themselves would give you a clip on the back of the head with their hand (painful) or flick you with a rolled up cape on the bum (very painful). 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.

Interesting film. It was filmed in Leamore Street in Hammersmith. My Mum lived there. The film crew gave them ice creams and skipping ropes to play in the background of some scenes (though on a quick look through the film, I didn't see much of this). 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. Joan Collins is impressive though.

Although the play Cosh Boy never made it to Broadway, probably too British in its subject matter, the original actor who played the lead on the London stage got to recreate his role for the screen. 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. Still his love 'em and leave 'em attitude is just one more reason to hate this kid. I've seen very few leading villains so lacking in any redeeming qualities. 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. That's what he and his gang use. He's the bane of the existence of his poor mother Betty Ann Davies who agonizes over what she did wrong in raising him. 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. It's a poor section of London these folks live in with evidence all around of the recent war. Kenney's gang hides out in the bombed out buildings still not repaired by 1953.

Cosh Boy is still quite a riveting piece of film making and Kenney is unforgettably evil.

this film screened in the early am last night on abc1 in Australia. 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. I wonder if Peter Sellers saw this film as one of the thugs has a comical high pitched voice identical to one of Sellers many voices! And the young Joan Collins, what a beauty!