Bronco Bullfrog

The film follows the fortunes of 17-year-old Del, and his group of friends. As the film opens, four youths, Del, Roy, Chris and Geoff, are seen breaking into a cafe in Stratford, East London, but they only get away with about ninepence and some cake, and it is clear that they are hardly master criminals. Back at their hut on waste ground they mention Jo, known as 'Bronco Bullfrog' (for reasons which are never explained), who has just got out of Borstal.

Once Del and Roy meet Jo in a cafe, they link up with him to carry out a bigger robbery. Meanwhile, Del meets Irene, a friend of a cousin of Chris's and they start a relationship despite the disapproval of Irene's mother and Del's father. The remainder of the film follows Del and Irene as they attempt to escape their dead-end lives.

• Del Walker as Del Quant
• Ann Gooding as Irene Richardson
• Sam Shepherd as Jo Saville alias Bronco Bullfrog
• Roy Haywood as Roy
• Freda Shepherd as Mrs. Richardson
• Dick Philpott as Del's father
• Chris Shepherd as Chris
• Stuart Stones as Sergeant Johnson
• Geoffrey Wincott as Geoff (as Geoff Wincott)
• J. Hughes Sr. as Del's uncle
• Mick Hart as Grimes
• Ken Field as Dave
• Marguerite Hughes as Marge
• E.E. Blundell as landlady
• J. Hughes Jr. as Parker

The film was shot in East London over a period of six weeks on 35mm. It was largely improvised and used a cast of non-professional actors.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}

The film was turned down by Bryan Forbes at EMI Films.The eclipse of the moon man

Malcolm, Derek. The Guardian 26 March 1971: 15.

A 2010 Guardian article noted a story about Princess Anne connected with the film's original release. In November 1970, a group of 200 members of the Beaumont Youth Club in Leyton jeered Princess Anne, with some throwing tomatoes, as she was going to see the London premiere of Three Sisters instead of Bronco Bullfrog.{{citation|title=Princess Anne Met by Skinhead Mob at Film Premiere|author=Keith Nurse, Arts reporter|date=3 Nov 1970|work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London, England|issue=35925|page=5}} A week later, Princess Anne did go to see the latter at the Mile End ABC. Sam Shepherd claims that he was arrested by police for attempting to kiss her hand.{{cite news |last=Brooks |first=Xan |date=3 June 2010 |title=Bronco Bullfrog: the film the UK forgot |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jun/03/bronco-bullfrog |access-date=27 December 2016 |newspaper=The Guardian |location=UK}} He would later write to her to apologise.{{cite news|last=Gilbey|first=Ryan|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/oct/15/barney-platts-mills-obituary|title=Barney Platts-Mills obituary|work=The Guardian|date=15 October 2021|access-date=16 October 2021}}

The film became obscure after its cinema run, and was only shown twice on television between 1969 and 2010.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}

In the mid-1980s, the master negative was disposed of in a rubbish skip but was retrieved by an employee of a film laboratory who placed it in an archive.

In 2022 the film was released in independent cinemas across the United States by the New York-based film label seventy-seven.[https://www.seventy-seven.co/bronco-bullfrog seventy-seven page for Bronco Bullfrog], see "Theaters" section

A new HD version of the film opened the ninth East End Film Festival on 22 April 2010, prior to its re-release in summer 2010.{{cite web |title=theartsdesk.com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews – The Arts Desk |url=http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1227:the-east-end-film-festival-unveils-its-programme&Itemid=12}}

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Ingredients that seem perilously unpromising – aimless, episodic narrative, the inarticulacy of the characters, and a cast picked almost literally 'off the street' (though several had worked on Platt's-Mills' previous, and aptly titled, film Everybody's an Actor) – compel attention by an underplayed and miraculously non-committal realism; both less sentimental than Kes [1969] and less insistently sociological than, say, We Are the Lambeth Boys [1959]. ... According to Platts-Mills, most of the scenes were indeed improvised – if only because the cast hadn't actually read the script – and the acting achieves in consequence an air of real spontaneity, even discovery, in which restless glances and glum silences become as illuminating as the 'dialogue' itself. Through these, the actors' personalities emerge strongly.{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1970 |title=Bronco Bullfrog |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1305840578/307B8E9EF8364F5BPQ/1 |journal=The Monthly Film Bulletin |volume=37 |issue=432 |pages=215 |via=ProQuest}}

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "This product of the British social realist school was much admired in its day with director Barney Platts-Mills being favourably compared to Ken Loach. ... Although rough around the edges and containing some weak supporting performances, the depiction of the restless, day-to-day existence of ordinary youngsters is authentic."{{Cite book |title=Radio Times Guide to Films |publisher=Immediate Media Company |year=2017 |isbn=9780992936440 |edition=18th |location=London |pages=135}}

Ali Carterall and Simon Wells wrote in Your Face Here: British Cult Movies Since the Sixties: "Bronco Bullfrog is as close to pure Mod poetry as you're going to get and it's a crying shame that this masterpiece has only been seen by a handful of those in the know."{{cite book |last1=Catterall |first1=Ali |title=Your Face Here: British Cult Movies Since the Sixties |last2=Wells |first2=Simon |publisher=Fourth Estate |year=2001 |isbn=1-84115-203-X |page=147 |quote= |authorlink2=}}

The film was released in the BFI Flipside series dual format edition (DVD and Blu-ray), with other films including Seven Green Bottles (1975, director Eric Marquis), and Platts-Mills' film Everybody's an actor, Shakespeare said (1968) as extras.{{cite web|url=http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=4989|title=Two Flipside Blu-ray Titles from BFI in September|work=Blu-ray.com}}

When submitted for home release, the film was originally given a 12 certificate in 2004 but this was changed to a 15 certificate in 2010.[https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/bronco-bullfrog-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0ynzcwmji BBFC page for Bronco Bullfrog], see "Related work" section The change is believed to come from the appearance of the taboo word cunt in graffiti in a very brief clip that the censors could have missed originally.{{Citation needed|date=April 2024}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.platts-mills.com/ Director Barney Platts-Mills website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110207233357/http://platts-mills.com/ |date=7 February 2011 }}
• {{IMDb title|id=0064111|title=Bronco Bullfrog}}
• {{Screenonline title|id=1231325|name=Bronco Bullfrog}}
• [http://www.modculture.co.uk/bronco/ Information about the film] from Modculture.co.uk
• [https://www.seventy-seven.co/bronco-bullfrog Bronoc Bulldog] at seventy-seven

Category:1970 films

Category:1970s coming-of-age drama films

Category:1970 crime drama films

Category:British black-and-white films

Category:British coming-of-age drama films

Category:British crime drama films

Category:British teen drama films

Category:Films directed by Barney Platts-Mills

Category:Films set in London

Category:Films shot in London

Category:Skinhead

Category:1970 directorial debut films

Category:1970s English-language films

Category:1960s British films

Category:1970s British films

Category:English-language crime drama films