Cosh Boy (1953)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Found Roy a thoroughly vile human being but didn't like Bob either. "For his own good"-merely an excuse from someone who'd always hated him,with or without good reason. Was rather hoping that the battered Roy would seize his gun, wound Bob,and do a runner-the cops' explanations to their superiors would have been good for a laugh! Oh-Joan Collins as teenage virgin.VERY old film!

COSH BOY is an intriguing mix of social drama and crime thriller, released in Britain in 1953. It deserves credit for tackling the subject matter of juvenile crime and delinquency in a stark and realistic way, avoiding sensation for the most part in its depiction of unpleasant events that spiral out of control and affect the lives of those involved. The film was shot by future Bond director Lewis Gilbert, who exhibits a good control of his medium even at this early stage of his career.James Kenney gives a thoroughly believable turn as the film's protagonist, one of the most unpleasant in all of 1950s cinema. Through him, the viewer gets into the mind of the thug and sees just what makes him tick. The exasperated family members are all well and good, but it's the youthful figures who stand out: an impossibly young Joan Collins as the naive girlfriend and Johnny Briggs as a callow gang member. Even Sid James and Laurence Naismith show up as coppers. There aren't many laughs here, but the oddly gripping nature of the material will see you through right till the end.

Couldn't agree more with the previous review. I caught the last 15 minutes on cable. I have yet to see more wooden acting -- just standing there and saying the lines!If I had been the Cosh Boy I would have just slugged my stepfather on the jaw and run away. Or, if American, shot him with my handy revolver.

'Cosh Boy' was made at a time when society was preoccupied with youth. Many men died in the war leaving widows on their own to cope with family life. The fear of crime in the early post-war period was blown out of proportion. 'Cosh Boy' is a reflection of this moral panic and many newspapers carried stories about 'cosh boys' going out mugging old ladies.Lewis Gilbert's film follows the rise and fall of Roy Walsh a young thug from Battersea. The acting is dire. Ian Whitaker who plays Roy's educationally backward sidekick Alfie collins is staggeringly bad. The film follows the struggles of Roy's widowed mother Elsie who is unable to control her son supposedly because of the absence of a man in the house. The grandmother also lives with Elsie and knows that Roy is no good, she represents the older wiser generation that believed in discipline and family life with two parents. The film has a soapbox message in advocating law and order. It starts from an irrational premise, i.e. the country risks being over-run by youthful barbarians. It advocates that women should follow their prescribed gender roles as housewives and mothers, leave the hard stuff like discipline to men. The most nauseating line in the film comes from Grandma Walsh 'They don't know what hard work is these days. Eight hours a day, five days a week, makes me laugh'. So the working classes should be grateful for less exploitative working hours and conditions. Reactionary trash but a laugh a minute none the less.