Gioventù spavalda

Audie Murphy, a BAD BOY on his way to career in the pen, is sent to Lloyd Nolan's ranch for delinquents in a last effort to straighten him out. Can Nolan find out what makes Murphy act so mean before he becomes a lifer at San Q?

Audie Murphy gets a bit of a bad rap as a movie star, because his movie star career, sometimes, felt like the reward of a grateful nation for his extraordinary war heroism. It's not fair. Audie can be very good -- as he demonstrates here, in his first starring role. In this movie, Murphy personifies a nice, polite, southern boy with a dangerous streak. This is the sort of kid who, one minute, can charm (in a mother/son kind of way) Lloyd Nolan's wife with good manners and genuine sweetness, and in the next, pound the smithereens out of one of his colleagues at the ranch for no good reason. Of course -- this being the 40s -- there is a very Freudian reason for this -- but until we get the psychotherapeutic ending, Murphy plays a kid on the knife's edge of good and rotten exceptionally well. What's interesting is that there is none of the acting awkwardness found in some of his early Westerns. One wonders if Murphy's directors didn't know what they had.

All the character actors give the performances you expect (Nolan is quite good here), the story moves along crisply, and one is left wondering why this one isn't better known. And, also, why Murphy didn't get to do more crime movies -- he has the acting chops for it.

Juvenile delinquency was a popular Hollywood genre in the 1950s, offering star turns to many young actors, e.g. James Dean, Marlon Brando, Lee Marvin, Montgomery Clift, and, here, in his first lead, Audie Murphy. War hero Murphy, at 24, plays a 17 year old violent psychopath, who is facing a 20 year sentence, until Lloyd Nolan convinces the Judge to send him to Nolan's camp for "underprivileged" boys, where he's certain that he can turn him around, especially with help from his wife, Jane Wyatt, and his associate, James Gleason. Murphy, despite very limited acting experience, is believable and unpretentious; Wyatt plays her usual goody two-shoes role and Nolan conveys the liberal message again and again. But 86 minutes is not too big of an imposition.

In Texas, baby-faced bellboy Audie Murphy (as Danny Lester) is caught in the opening act beating up his co-worker and stuffing him in a locker. The narrator informs us that Mr. Murphy is 17-years-old, and WANTED by the police. There are 62 different charges against him. He is taken to Dallas county juvenile court and receives a "pass" from the reformatory. A very handsome young man, Murphy strokes his wavy hair for the female judge, but she sees through his act. Due to his numerous crimes, the court thinks Murphy is too dangerous for leniency. However, they let him go to "Varsity Clubs Boy's Ranch" under the care of kindly Lloyd Nolan (as Marshall "Coach" Brown) for a trial run...

Murphy continues to cause trouble, getting into a fight with Mr. Nolan's Navy veteran assistant James Gleason (as "Chief"). Murphy mixes poorly with the other "boys" in the bunkhouse. These include singer-guitarist Stanley Clements (as Bitsy Johnson), college-bound boxer Jimmy Lydon (as Ted Hendry), and likewise good-looking Dickie Moore (as Charlie). Nolan thinks there is no such thing as a "Bad Boy" so we need to figure out if this is correct and look for evidence. Murphy calls out for his mother at night and is very nice to Nolan's mothering wife Jane Wyatt. A flashback reveals much; in it, Murphy plays himself as a 12-year-old. There is so much else unconvincing in the story, you hardly notice.

***** Bad Boy (2/22/49) Kurt Neumann ~ Audie Murphy, Lloyd Nolan, Stanley Clements, Jane Wyatt

Introducing Audie Murphy as the wayward seventeen year old "Danny", we find that he has luckily found himself being taken under the wing of the kindly "Brown" (Lloyd Nolan) and his wife "Maud" (Jane Wyatt) who run a Variety Club ranch for other young men who have strayed to the wrong side of the tracks. Now the stroppy adolescent in this case is proving quite recalcitrant and resistant to their charms; is perfectly happy to remain obnoxious and to talk with his fists at the drop of an hat. The army-trained enforcer (James Gleason) is inclined to consign him to the compost heap, but "Brown" is determined to get to the bottom of his new charge's behaviour and quickly discovers a family history that goes some way to explaining just why "Danny" is the pain in the neck that he is. Question is, though, can "Brown" manage to rein in the man before he falls back into his naughty ways and this time finds the judge (Selena Royle) inclined to reinstate her original sentence of 20 years in chokey? This has something of the Good Samaritan about it extolling the virtues of a scenario when the system co-operates with some good will to save a man from himself, and along those lines we safely travel with little jeopardy for ninety minutes. Murphy is handsome enough - in a central casting sort of fashion - and he does enough, but he doesn't really impose himself in any way that might make you think a star is born here. Nolan hasn't really enough to work with from the script to enable his normally quite pithy and characterful delivery and some of the sub-plots seem designed to drip roast facts for us in all too convenient a fashion. It's all watchable enough but it's not really anything special.

That depends of which point of view, but considering the history of Audie Murphy's life, the latest was not the common law abiding citizen. Not far from the end, his character says he is not afraid to kill; if you know the true life of Audie Murphy before he became an actor, this sentence seems so accurate and true. And this role was the best opportunity for him to begin in the business, and in a lead role; unlike his two first pictures that he made before. The relation between young Audie Murphy and the already vet Lloyd Nolan is interesting. And as the first film sentence says, the main character, this young delinquent, is not a Dead End Kid. No cliché here, but it's not LES HAUTS MURS either. It could have been more gritty, poignant, brutal too. Because young delinquents world is sometimes very tough, violent. This looks like a propaganda and cheesy film, but it is still interesting to see Audie Murphy between his true life war hero character and his westerns one, that will follow very soon after this movie.