The Good Die Young (1954)

The Good Die Young is a 1954 British crime thriller directed by Lewis Gilbert. The first thing you’re going to notice about this movie is the cast - Laurence Harvey, Margaret Leighton, Stanley Baker, Gloria Grahame, Richard Basehart and Joan Collins. That’s a staggering amount of star power, both British and American. And the supporting cast includes Robert Morley (always fun) and Lee Patterson (whose performances I always enjoy).

The movie starts with four men about to pull off an armed robbery. This is a heist movie. Then we get extended flashbacks that tell us how the four came to be attempting something so obviously destined for failure.

They are all trapped in a spiral of despair and desperation. And they’re all primed to make seriously bad decisions.

Joe (Richard Basehart) is an American who has come to London to take his English wife Mary (Joan Collins) back to the States with him. He hadn’t reckoned on the determination of Mary’s manipulative mother to keep Mary with her and to wreck her marriage. Now Joe has run out of money so even if he can persuade Mary to make the break there’s no money to get back to New York.

Eddie (John Ireland) is an American serviceman. He’s married to movie star Denise (Gloria Grahame). She’s more of an aspiring movie star, convinced that major stardom is just around the corner. And she’s having an affair with handsome young actor Tod Maslin (Lee Patterson). The ensuing dramas cause Eddie to desert. Now he’s in serious trouble.

Mike (Stanley Baker) is a boxer. After twelve years of getting the daylights beaten out of him in the ring he has saved enough to get out of the fight game. Then he’s hit by disaster. A serious hand injury leaves him unable to fight and unable to get a regular job. And then comes a second disaster when his worthless brother-in-law costs him all the money he’s saved. Now he just can’t see a way out.

These three men can all be seen as basically decent guys who don’t really understand how their lives got so messed up.

Rave (Laurence Harvey) is a different kettle of fish. He’s the idle useless son of Sir Francis Ravenscourt (Robert Morley) who is no longer willing to pay his son’s debts. Rave is charming, manipulative, lazy, scheming and a thoroughly worthless human being. The one thing Rave fears is the prospect of work. Now he’s come up with a surefire plan to get rich, but he’ll need help.

It’s a robbery but it’s fool-proof. Eddie, Mike and Joe are not happy about the guns but Rave assures them that there won’t be any need to use them.

In the case of all four men there’s a woman involved but only one of the women (Denise) could be described as a femme fatale. The women do however, in differing ways, provide the crucial motivations that lead the four men to be sitting in a car, holding guns, about to commit armed robbery.

Eddie, Mike and Joe are typical noir protagonists - basically decent guys who have succumbed to temptation born of desperation. Rave is a much more sinister figure. His problem is that he thinks he’s a whole lot smarter than he really is. He thinks he’s a criminal mastermind but he’s an arrogant bungling amateur.

All of the performances are very very good. Laurence Harvey is perhaps the standout - he really does ooze reptilian charm. Among the women Joan Collins is adorable and looks gorgeous. Gloria Grahame has a part that was tailor-made for her and she makes the most of it. She is such a bad girl.

If there’s a weakness to this movie it’s that the build-up takes a bit too long. I can understand why it was done that way - we need to get to know these people and know what makes them tick and we need to care about their fates. But a bit of tightening up would not have hurt.

When we get to the heist it’s handled extremely well indeed and it’s beautifully shot with some very noir cinematography by Jack Asher and some fine use of very noirish locations. The movie was shot widescreen in black-and-white.

The premise has plenty of film noir potential and that potential is realised. This is full-blown film noir and it packs a punch.

The BFI Blu-Ray provides an exquisite transfer.

The Good Die Young is a top-notch British film noir and it’s highly recommended.