Bronco Bullfrog

I'm only a few years younger than the protagonists and can remember the clothes (though I don't believe these people were really suedeheads) and the cars and the caffs etc. And for a bit of nostalgia and as a visual snapshot of life at the time, it's worth a watch. But the bottom line is that using non-professional actors to portray people just like themselves doesn't get us, necessarily, anywhere nearer naturalistic realism than the smarmiest of drama school brats would. So it proves. It's mostly dreadfully wooden, all muttered lines, rigid stances and strange pauses, to the extent that the plot, basic though it is, is difficult to follow.In fact some passages are downright mystifying in that respect. It gets a bit better as it goes on but whichever critic called this a 'masterpiece' is just being silly.

I went to a viewing of this in Brighton, UK at which the director, Barney Platts-Mills, and one actor, Roy Haywood, was present. tidbits regarding the film: it cost £18k (at 1969 prices) under budget of £20k.

All the actors were untrained and this was their first piece of acting.

Some of the actors were tearaway kids who engaged in theft in real life. They stole filming equipment from the set not realising its value, and that by doing so they threatened the films production.

Martin Scorsese has a 16mm print of the film in his private collection and regards it highly. The original negative was nearly thrown away when the film company went bankrupt but it was recovered from a rubbish pile by an attentive employee.

The director said that he preferred untrained actors to trained ones because they didn't ad-lib or interpret their roles: they played it straight from the script and that this was the reason for the extreme minimalism of the performances. For them it wasn't an exciting filmic opportunity it was, Roy Haywood said, "just a job - not exciting - just a way to earn money". The director said that that made their performances special.

Platts-Mills said that the main theme of the film, which most critics missed, was "why shouldn't a 15 year old girl sleep with those who she wishes to?"

-----

The film's title "Bronco Bullfrog" refers to the thief who escaped from borstal and had to make his way in the world whilst on the run by engaging in theft. He does not play the major role in the film however. That goes to Del and Anne a young couple who meet in the deprived environment of Stratford in East London where there is little for kids to do and where they have no money. Their relationship strengthens and they attempt to escape their limiting environment by running away to the coast.

The films has its comic moments often driven by the utterly spartan & anorexic dialog. Conversations that would occupy tens of minutes of naff method-overacting in a Hollywood film are dispatched in two or three words: for example when the couple meet for the first time and agree to date the entire conversation is: "Del:do you want to go out? Anne:Yea, OK".

These are kids who are adrift and going nowhere. The plot is an engaging slice into their life and a unique fusion of drama and social documentary: unlike anything else made.

Currently an offering on Criterion (8/2024). Recent restoration actually produced a rather beautiful piece of film. Non-actors working from a non-script seems to somehow capture the times better than if it had been a carefully crafted story. Almost cinema-virite, almost documentary style most like a collection of home movies from 1970. Or better yet what the world (East end London) would have looked like with YouTube and camera phones in 1970. Seems like something that should be taught in film school which is saying something about a film rescued from a dumpster/bin. This ain't Hollywood and this ain't got no happy ending but that isn't what film is all about.

Proof if it were needed that not everything was bright and shiny for everyone in those infamous 'swinging sixties'. Here a largely improvised series of incidents is filmed on location in Stratford and Greenwich. The second half with the girlfriend and vague plans to leave home is more successful that the first mainly centred around a robbery at a goods marshalling yard but the whole has a likeable enough rolling gait to it that feels authentic enough. Ironic of course that the lack of acting ability tends to give the impression of inauthenticity. Fortunately the essential good nature of the participants and the reliance on location shooting ensures that this is far more interesting than it might have been had it been over rehearsed and shot in a studio. Lots of fabulous shots of a less than fabulous Stratford of the time and now almost all replaced. Most of the war torn and.prefab strewn streets were soon to be built on and more recently the Olympic Park would smooth out and gentrify much of the rest. The short sequence at the end of the film is particularly interesting showing the Greenwich foot tunnel and the riverside power station. Both are still in use but the ships seen alongside and the working docks beyond are long gone. Not the finest film in the world but a valuable document of late sixties east London and pleasant enough watch.

It was interesting to see this long-forgotten independent English feature, which was barely seen when it came out. But the kind of over-excitement that tends to pronounce any "rediscovered" film some kind of classic would really be wrong-headed in this case. The main problem is that while it's understandable to want to cast nonprofessionals in order to get a more "realistic" ambiance in this kind of drama, you still have to give them SOME kind of basic training so they don't look like deer before headlights in front of the camera, just reciting their lines and holding themselves stiffly as if for a still photo. And that's exactly what happens here.

The adults playing parents are OK, but the juveniles are stilted, and the two who were deemed good-looking enough to be leads are so wooden we feel nothing for them. Eventually the barely-there plot hinges on their running away to have some alone time (since both their single parents are hostile towards their being together), and I guess we're meant to root for Young Love, but these two can't express anything--whether love, lust, or just some basic intelligence.

The only real point of interest is the location shooting, and glimpsing a side of (East) London that obviously never got the least "Swinging." There's also a decent enough rock soundtrack. But whether we're focused on the mildly criminal doings of the first half or the runaway couple of the second, there's no narrative tension, and the actors are stiff as boards. A 5 is actually a very generous rating in terms of any entertainment or dramatic value, but I boosted it up from a 4 just for the sake of it providing a time capsule.