"The Good Die Young" is a 1954 British film with an impressive cast consisting of Laurence Harvey, Stanley Baker, John Ireland, Richard Basehart, Joan Collins, Margaret Leighton, and Gloria Grahame.
The four men band together to commit a robbery, though they're not experienced criminals - just three men down in their luck and desperate, and one snake (that would be Harvey). Richard Basehart plays Joe, whose wife Mary left for England to visit her sick mother and hasn't returned. Her mother is the type that has attacks whenever Mary says she's going home. Meanwhile, she's pregnant and he has to get her back to America, but since he's quit his job, he needs money.
John Ireland is Eddie, who is married to an actress (Grahame). She is so busy on the set (and with her costar) that he goes AWOL to have time with her. By the time he realizes she's not worth it, it's too late.
Stanley Baker is Mike Morgan, who loses his gangrenous hand after a boxing match, and needs money to live on.
Laurence Harvey is a worm married to a wealthy woman (Leighton) who refuses to pay his gambling debt and wants him to move to Africa with her. He comes up with the idea of the robbery and convinces the others.
This has the look and feel of a British B picture from the era and there really isn't anything exceptional about it. It's not as suspenseful as it could have been, though it isn't bad. It's worth seeing for these young actors, and indeed, Harvey, Baker,Leighton, and Graham did die young, sadly. The only one today still with us is the indomitable Joan Collins, now 79.
Worth a look.
The four men band together to commit a robbery, though they're not experienced criminals - just three men down in their luck and desperate, and one snake (that would be Harvey). Richard Basehart plays Joe, whose wife Mary left for England to visit her sick mother and hasn't returned. Her mother is the type that has attacks whenever Mary says she's going home. Meanwhile, she's pregnant and he has to get her back to America, but since he's quit his job, he needs money.
John Ireland is Eddie, who is married to an actress (Grahame). She is so busy on the set (and with her costar) that he goes AWOL to have time with her. By the time he realizes she's not worth it, it's too late.
Stanley Baker is Mike Morgan, who loses his gangrenous hand after a boxing match, and needs money to live on.
Laurence Harvey is a worm married to a wealthy woman (Leighton) who refuses to pay his gambling debt and wants him to move to Africa with her. He comes up with the idea of the robbery and convinces the others.
This has the look and feel of a British B picture from the era and there really isn't anything exceptional about it. It's not as suspenseful as it could have been, though it isn't bad. It's worth seeing for these young actors, and indeed, Harvey, Baker,Leighton, and Graham did die young, sadly. The only one today still with us is the indomitable Joan Collins, now 79.
Worth a look.