Cosh Boy

This was known in England as "Cosh Boy."

A cosh is a blackjack or bludgeon and cosh means mugging someone.

Nice performance by James Kenney as a juvenile delinquent who runs a gang that beats up little old ladies and steals their money. Kenney played the lead on the London stage and does an excellent job.

He becomes involved with one of the gang members' sister (Joan Collins) with disastrous results.

Both of the Hermoines are in this film. Gingold looked like a drag queen.

Post-war juvenile delinquency was going on everywhere, including Britain.

Amazing to see 20-year-old Joan Collins, who as of this writing is still with us 70 years later. The film is worth it just for that.

It's a shame that COSH BOY (strangely re-titled THE SLASHER) is so extremely dated, holding back what's promised by the edgy image of British teen actor James Kenney as a street thug "teddy boy" (name of youth gangs in England)... because Kenney not only delivers his dialogue strongly, but listens just as intensely...

Too bad most of his words are aimed at his dotting mother, about to marry a man who can't wait to punish her oldest son... and she's more important than the fellow gang members, who sporadically hit the streets to "cosh" (violently mug) their victims...

On the peripheral is a romance with Joan Collins, injecting the kind of wispy hysterics to suit what's ultimately more a melodrama with crime genre elements than the sleek crime-noir it could/should have been instead...

Yet despite the flaws, director Lewis Gilbert, during the few scenes that matter involving the young gang working together before turning on each other, brings the viewer straight into the action... that is, when the distractions haven't taken over, in this case, almost entirely.

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.

Don't miss this, now available as THE SLASHER as part of a Kit Parker Films DVD double bill under the moniker British Film Noir (along with TWILIGHT WOMEN). Strictly speaking I would class neither of these two productions as 'film noir' - more social problem and crime films. THE SLASHER is actually the American renaming of good old COSH BOY, a title which has occasionally surfaced on UK's C4. It's the main reason why I, and I suspect others, will want this disc - a minor cult item featuring a memorable central turn for James Kenney - who also appears, to less effect in another recent release (from the UK this time) GELIGNITE GANG. Kenney plays Roy, the anti-social, selfish, cunning and manipulative thug, about whose short career as a petty criminal the film is about. Highlight of the film is the corporal punishment meted out to Roy by his new stepfather in the final scenes - something strikingly and splendidly un-PC: much more more intense and yes, satisfying in effect than any amount of more establishment-accommodating endings familiar from other films of this ilk. I'm no supporter of the belt, but by God you will be crying out for Roy, who has betrayed his girlfriend (a very young Joan Collins) his mother, his grandmother and almost everyone else, to get the taste of it by time of the end! THE SLASHER may have its weaknesses, including an obvious black-and-white view of behaviour, but with such a powerful ending, together with Kenney's memorable performance it is a must-see. Those who criticise some of the acting (viz: one of Roy's stooges, a particularly whining individual) miss the point - this is British exploitation at its best. The DVD quality is excellent btw except for one or soundtrack drop outs with the present release.

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.