Four Boys and a Gun

Four Boys And A Gun is the story of four 50s urban youths who get themselves in a financial jackpot and decide to stick up a sports arena on the night of a big prize fight. One of them has a gun and a police officer dies in the holdup. The four kids are Frank Sutton, James Franciscus, Tarry Green, and William Hinnant. As you see two of the four had substantial careers. Probably a miracle after this film.

After showing the holdup and the capture of the kids, we see a story of how each got to the position they're in. They're offered a deal if the one who actually had the gun and did the shooting confesses the others will get life sentences.

These four are really a quartet of losers. Some people never do catch a break nor see and seize it when it does come.

Shoddy camera work, poor direction and an idea that is preposterous for a premise.

I saw this film as an adolescent, among many I saw those years in my small mid-west home-city. This was a "great" film for me in that, as a naive (and I still consider myself such), even I discovered that there was such a thing as BAD film. This realization developed in later years into the idea that each movie-going is a gamble, in which I stake my money & time on the prospect of a good entertainment experience. And naturally, sometimes I lose. This realization put the onus on me for my own experience. I oughtn't be angry with the film for being bad. Put another way, as surely as there are great films, there HAVE to be duds. I'm almost tempted enough to rent FBAAG again, a)to see Jas. Franciscus, and b)to see if it really was all that bad. Tho, upon reflection, I'm fairly sure that it was.

Watchable but not very involving drama. Aside from Frank Sutton none of the eponymous actors gave especially memorable performances and the writing and direction lacked impact, as well. Everything just seemed to hover around the cliche line, not descending into caricature but certainly not rising to Scorsesian or even Levinsonian levels. Kinda like a mid level episode of "Naked City", actually (appropriate since James Franciscus was the precursor of Paul Burke on that series). Give it a C.

Four young adults -- James Franciscus (in his movie debut), Frank Sutton, Tarry Green, and William Hinnant -- scramble to make money. None of their schemes work, so they try robbery. When they kill a cop, one of them faces execution.

Producer-director William Berke had been making TV shows for four years. Then he returned to the big screen in 1957, directed six pictures, and died early in 1958. He started directing B westerns in 1935, and spent fifteen years doing little else, turning out as many as ten in a year, usually on a 12-day shooting schedule. Coming back from TV, he stretched into other genres, like this cheap crime movie based on a mid-1940s novel. However, while the camera work is competent, the performances seem to concentrate on loudness rather than subtlety, the movie on shock rather than emotion.

Four boys rob the box office of a boxing match with a gun. Two cops walk by and one of them gets killed. The boys are quickly rounded up. During the police interview, the boys' backstory and the road leading to the robbery is revealed in flashbacks.

I don't really like the flashback structure. It's not a death blow for the movie but it does need to be careful with the pacing. It seems to me that the premise centers on the night of the robbery. The movie would work better staying closer to the gun and that night. They are dancing a bit too far away from the bull's eye. This should be going back to the intensity of the robbery night over and over again. I don't recognize these actors. I do like the individuality of the characters. It's a 50's scared straight crime movie.