Girls running wild must have been a post war problem and films
of that period were at pains to point out the sticky situations they
faced when they found themselves in company with usually
older experienced criminals. Jean Kent scored the role of a lifetime
as Gwen Rawlings who seems destined for a fast race to the devil!!
You never doubt that she is 16 or the pride she feels when mistaken
for 24!!
Initial scenes show a young Diana Dors as an underage runaway, too frightened to return home to her brute of a father - Flora Robson as a sympathetic matron tells her the story of Gwen Rawlings, hoping to bring the girl to her senses. Jean Kent, interviewed for the book "60 Voices" felt that the character in the original book was more believable for being not quite the wide eyed innocent portrayed in the movie. I still thought Kent was terrific - she had the deck stacked against her from the start but still wanted to be where all the bad action was!! Firstly, trying to put back a necklace she had borrowed from a dance the night before, she rebuffs the slimy jeweller's advances, is quickly fired and then has to face her father's violence. It's all downhill from there!! Thrown out of home, she is quickly drawn into the underworld of London where a spiv at her lodging house gets her a job as a club hostess.
There are a couple of decent people - Herbert Lom as the tough club manager realises she is out of her depth and Dennis Price as Mike Farrell who wants to help her but can't offer her long term happiness as his separation from his wife is only temporary. For every nice person she meets there are any number of thugs and petty criminals ready to give her the excitement she wants and aiding in her degradation. For the first one, she ends up in a woman's prison, the next, Danny Martin (Griffith Jones, one time Jessie Matthews co-star, who found his true calling with a string of psychopath roles) leaves her for dead in a railway carriage. She is found by two G.Is who seem innocuous enough but they are AWOLs and she then finds herself as part of a crime gang - she the lure, while they provide the thuggery!! The film comes to an electrifying climax as one of the cars who stop to help an "hysterical" woman, turns out to be the only person who ever looked out for her - Farrell. Too late, her hysterics are soon for real as she urges him not to stop!!
First class movie - Jean Kent is the whole show, Dennis Price does his usual gentlemanly turn and Bonar Colleano is super as the dark hearted G.I.
Very Recommended.
Initial scenes show a young Diana Dors as an underage runaway, too frightened to return home to her brute of a father - Flora Robson as a sympathetic matron tells her the story of Gwen Rawlings, hoping to bring the girl to her senses. Jean Kent, interviewed for the book "60 Voices" felt that the character in the original book was more believable for being not quite the wide eyed innocent portrayed in the movie. I still thought Kent was terrific - she had the deck stacked against her from the start but still wanted to be where all the bad action was!! Firstly, trying to put back a necklace she had borrowed from a dance the night before, she rebuffs the slimy jeweller's advances, is quickly fired and then has to face her father's violence. It's all downhill from there!! Thrown out of home, she is quickly drawn into the underworld of London where a spiv at her lodging house gets her a job as a club hostess.
There are a couple of decent people - Herbert Lom as the tough club manager realises she is out of her depth and Dennis Price as Mike Farrell who wants to help her but can't offer her long term happiness as his separation from his wife is only temporary. For every nice person she meets there are any number of thugs and petty criminals ready to give her the excitement she wants and aiding in her degradation. For the first one, she ends up in a woman's prison, the next, Danny Martin (Griffith Jones, one time Jessie Matthews co-star, who found his true calling with a string of psychopath roles) leaves her for dead in a railway carriage. She is found by two G.Is who seem innocuous enough but they are AWOLs and she then finds herself as part of a crime gang - she the lure, while they provide the thuggery!! The film comes to an electrifying climax as one of the cars who stop to help an "hysterical" woman, turns out to be the only person who ever looked out for her - Farrell. Too late, her hysterics are soon for real as she urges him not to stop!!
First class movie - Jean Kent is the whole show, Dennis Price does his usual gentlemanly turn and Bonar Colleano is super as the dark hearted G.I.
Very Recommended.