Thanks for the memories!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

From the moment you see her naked leg while her hands roll a stocking up her leg, you know that she's truly bad to the bone. The camera finally shows the face, not unattractive, but certainly no Marilyn either. Married to a much older boxing trainer, she at first ignores his protégé Tony Wright but when she sees him fight, her juices begin to flow as her sexuality takes over her scheming mind. Even telling Wright off in a later scene and lying about her lust, you know she's got seduction on her mind, and ultimately murder.Barbara Payton is rumored to have been equally a femme fatal as much off screen as she was on, and that adds an intriguing twist to her wicked women. Obviously a rip-off of other similar film noir, this is more camp and a guilty pleasure than a classic. When Payton gets kissed by her obese slob of a husband (Frederick Valk), her disgust oozes off the screen with pure venom. The camp explodes when Valk's suspicious family arrives after the comically filmed "tragedy". His aging stereotypical mama, looking like something out of ancient Greek tragedy, and his equally severe looking sister adds to the over-top melodrama.This is B bad movie making at its most delightful with one dimensional performances and clichéd dialog that is laughably bad. Yet, the camera work is really good, so you can see this as being pretty influential with the new wave directors getting to make their mark on film.

In 1950, American producer Robert Lippert formed a business alliance with Hammer studios. Under the agreement, Lippert would provide American acting talent - frequently shop-worn stars or just supporting actors who fancied a profitable trip out of the country - while Hammer would supply the rest of the cast and the production facilities. Together they would split the profits. Famous for his concern with the bottom line, Lippert produced over 140 films between 1946 and 1955, characteristically genre pieces such as I Shot Jesse James or Rocketship XM. For the British deal, most of the films were noir-ish thrillers - and include this title.Directed by American B-meister Reginald La Borg, The Flanagan Boy is a hugely enjoyable tale of a young boxer whose career is destroyed by the blonde of the US title, the aptly cast Barbara Peyton. Peyton, whose short career was marred by disastrous excesses and liaisons in her private life, is marvellous as the scheming fatale Lorna Vechi, whose marriage to a doting boxing manager is a sham, and whose sexual predations draw in most men around her. Surprisingly explicit in showing female desire (at one point Lorna licks her lips in close up as she eyes the torso of the well formed fighter, standing all self- conscious and sweaty after a bout), as others have noticed this is a film that recalls the similar shenanigans of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). Sid James makes an appearance as the original manager of the doomed boxer, and it's a film that still bears up well.

A young boxer (John Slater) is discovered and a nice boxing promoter, Giuseppe (Frederick Valk). However, the aging Giuseppe is married to a dame that is pure poison (Barbara Payton)--and it's obvious to everyone but sweet Giuseppe. Naturally, she gets her claws into the naive fighter and later she hatches a plot to kill her husband! This is a rather interesting example of British Film Noir. Despite having a very familiar plot of a wicked femme fatale that is reminiscent of such films as DOUBLE INDEMNITY and THE KILLERS, the film still manages to be very entertaining. Most of this is due to the excellent script that, despite familiar themes, has excellent dialog and pacing. Additionally, the mostly small-time acting cast generally did a good job--though I did think the character of Giuseppe was rather over-played.The most fascinating things about this film are the behind the scenes aspects. Ms. Payton plays a character that is pretty much the real Barbara Payton. While in her very, very checkered past she was never connected with a murder, Ms. Payton was a horrid individual and was essentially a true-life femme fatale! Having orchestrated a beating delivered by her lovers (Tom Neal and Franchot Tone), she then went on to substance abuse, shoplifting and prostitution before dying of liver failure and heart disease at age 39! What's more fascinating than this is the very final scene where another young boxer is shown heading towards the camera. This guy is the spitting image of Tom Neal!! He's not listed in the IMDb credits and IMDb doesn't list him as being in THE FLANAGAN BOY. I assume the producers of this film must have scoured high and low to find another actor like Neal in order to play off the negative publicity the Payton-Neal affair two years earlier! Well worth a look-the film is fascinating and the real-life Payton parallels are even more interesting.

Much as 1948's Whiplash was a cross-knockoff of two John Garfield vehicles (Body and Soul, Humoresque), Bad Blonde grafts Body and Soul to The Postman Always Rings Twice, then transplants the hybrid to alien English soil. At a carnival boxing concession, young Johnny Flanagan (Tony Wright, who looks like young John Kennedy) takes up the challenge and reveals himself as quite the pugilist. Concessionaire Sid James, a savvy judge of boxing talent, sees his opportunity to make a comback in the prizefight racket. He gets Wright signed up with rich old Italian promoter Frederick Valk, who on a recent tour of America has brought back Barbara Payton as a souvenir. When Wright catches a furtive glimpse of Payton smoothing a stocking along her thigh, he's struck tongue-tied. She's not so bashful, licking her lips as she rakes her eyes up his torso, stripped for the ring. Soon, under the guise of training at Valk's country manor, they're having clandestine clinches in the bracken. But, it apparently being true about leaving one's fight in the bedroom, Wright starts losing his timing, and, more urgently, an important match Valk arranges, thus jinxing his career. But Payton has money, or rather will have once her husband goes down for the count. She feigns a suicide attempt and a pregnancy, then dangles the possibility of murder. The diffident Wright, thinking the child is his, falls in with the plan...Somebody besides Payton must have been obsessed with Wright's body: The camera finds every opportunity to linger over it, in the ring and under the water, in trunks and towels and bathing briefs. Did this male-fixated aspect of the movie, originally titled The Flanagan Boy with Wright its title character, cause sufficient panic to have the movie renamed and remarketed? As Bad Blonde, it capitalizes on Payton's aggressive allures, soon to be available on the open market: The actress would drift into tabloid scandals, check-kiting and ultimately prostitution. Only four more films would remain before her last, Murder Is My Beat, in 1955. Twelve years later she would be dead of alcohol-related causes.