Wide Boy (film)

Benny is a black marketeer, dealing in stolen goods; after yet another arrest Benny meets up with his girlfriend Molly, a hairdresser, and they go somewhere different for them, a bar called The Flamingo.

There are only two other customers there at the bar, Robert Mannering and his mistress Caroline Blaine, and it is clear from their conversation that he is a famous surgeon whose wife is dying. Benny notices Caroline's smart handbag, and manages to steal Caroline's wallet. Benny then realises that he recognises Mannering as a famous surgeon. Mannering and Caroline leave shortly afterwards, followed by Benny and Molly, who is unaware of Benny's theft, but Mannering and Caroline return to the bar as they realise that the wallet was stolen by Benny, although the barman George says he did not know Benny as he had never been to the bar before.

Back in his room Benny finds £32 in the wallet, but also a letter from Mannering to Caroline, which makes it clear that he is having an affair with her and that his wife must not find out. He decides to blackmail the couple, and Mannering agrees to pay him as he does not want any scandal as he is trying to get voted onto the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Mannering agrees to meet Benny and pay £200 for the letter, but finds that he has been cheated and does not get the letter back. Benny spends some of the money on a watch for Molly, which he says cost him £60. He then rings up Mannering again, this time asking for £300, but as he goes to the meeting he buys a gun. When he meets Mannering they swap the money and the letter, but Benny tells Mannering, falsely, that he took a photo of the letter and has the negative, suggesting that he intends to continue blackmailing Mannering. The latter grabs hold of Benny, but in the ensuing struggle Benny shoots Mannering dead.

The police investigation soon leads them first to Caroline, and then George, the barman at the Flamingo, who identifies Benny from police files. They go to Benny's address but he manages to escape and goes to a crook, Rocco, to try and get out of the country. Rocco however wants £400, so Benny decides to ask Molly to give him back the watch so that he can raise the money. By chance however Caroline makes an appointment at the hairdressers where Molly works, and inadvertently Molly makes Caroline realise that it was her with Benny in the Flamingo that evening; she then hears a conversation between Molly and Benny on the phone, arranging a meeting at a railway bridge that evening. She tells the police, who are waiting for Benny when he turns up; he tries to escape by scrambling over the bridge but falls to his death on the tracks below.

• Sydney Tafler as Benny
• Susan Shaw as Molly
• Melissa Stribling as Caroline Blaine
• Colin Tapley as Robert Mannering
• Ronald Howard as Chief Inspector Carson
• Gerald Case as Detective Sgt Stott
• Laidman Browne as Pop
• Glyn Houston as George
• Martin Benson as Rocco
• Dorothy Bramhall as Felicity
• Madeline Burgess as Sally
• Ian Wallace as Mario
• Peggy Banks as receptionist (uncredited)

The story was by Rex Rienits, who also used it for a radio play and novel. Rienits wrote the scenario for star Sydney Tafler, who had been in the 1951 film Assassin for Hire (1951), also written by Rienits.{{cite news|url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205660895|title=Australian Writer Succeeds in London|newspaper=The Age|issue=30,161|location=Victoria, Australia|date=29 December 1951|page=4|via=National Library of Australia}}{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|date=12 January 2025|access-date=12 January 2025|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-moguls-nat-cohen-part-one-1905-56/|title=Forgotten British Moguls: Nat Cohen – Part One (1905-56)}} Tafler, however, played a different role in Wide Boy, whereas Ronald Howard and Gerald Case were cast as the same policeman characters they'd played in the earlier film.

Film rights were bought by Anglo Amalgamated{{cite news|url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55461066|title=Overseas movie gossip|newspaper=The Australian Women's Weekly|volume=19|issue=28|location=Australia|date=12 December 1951|page=34|via=National Library of Australia}} and filming started at the end of January 1952.{{cite news|url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article159013673|title=Hat-Trick By Film Script Man|newspaper=The Newcastle Sun|location=New South Wales, Australia|date=20 December 1951|page=7|via=Trove}}

Wide Boy was released in June 1952 as support feature to the Anthony Kimmins film Who Goes There!

In Picturegoer, Lionel Collier called it a "well-made, taut little picture," noting also that Tafler "makes a good and credible job of the wide boy and Susan Shaw is convincing as his girlfriend ... There is plenty of ingenuity in the way the blackmailer goes to work. Ronald Howard's police inspector is an interesting piece of acting."Lionel Collier, 'Talking of Films', Picturegoer, 28 June 1952, p. 19.

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Coincidence plays a large part in this story, which has action and movement but is not, as a whole, particularly competent. Sydney Tafler gives an efficient performance as Benny."{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1952 |title=Wide Boy |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1305813528/C803B872242F4B00PQ/1 |journal=The Monthly Film Bulletin |volume=19 |issue=216 |pages=82 |via=ProQuest}}

Kine Weekly wrote: "The picture, a tidy affair, moves briskly along Londen's seamy side. Sydney Tafler, as Benny, looks the part and delivers the apt dialogue convincingly. Melissa Stribling shows promise as Caroline, and the support is adequate. The salutary ending is perhaps a trifle confected, but even so the melodrama, for its size, carries quite a punch. The masses should find it both amusing and exciting."{{Cite journal |date=8 May 1952 |title=Wide Boy |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2732586815/4BF1E6B4B7B04648PQ/1 |journal=Kine Weekly |volume=422 |issue=2341 |pages=22 |via=ProQuest}}

Among later reviews, BFI Screenoline said that Hughes "displays a keen awareness of class differences and, although opportunities for character development are strictly limited by the film's brief running time, he manages to avoid caricature and sketches a series of contrasting milieus with the authenticity brought by the careful observation of detail. Hughes also takes the trouble to make sure that, while conventional morality is upheld, we retain some shred of sympathy for his wide boy.[http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1383129/index.html Wide Boy] at BFI Screenonline.

The Independent wrote that the film "rarely features on the official list of 'great British films of 1952' but it does boast a winning performance from Sidney{{sic}} Tafler in the title role amid a bomb-ravaged London of quite amazing shoddiness."FILM: Attack of the B-movie ; Cheap, low-quality, second features were a cinema staple until TV killed them. ANDREW ROBERTS salutes a neglected genre: [First Edition]

Roberts, Andrew. The Independent; 6 Jan 2006: 13.

Sight and Sound wrote "Ken Hughes' direction captures an existence of cheap dreams, 20-shillings-per-week lodging houses and harshly neon-lit streets; Tafler's "glycerine mouthed" spiv is far more charismatic than Ronald Howard's police inspector."Roberts, Andrew. Playing to the stalls. Sight & Sound; London Vol. 20, Iss. 1, (Jan 2010): 10-11,2.

Filmink called it "stripped back, atmospheric entertainment, without an ounce of fat on it."{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/ken-hughes-forgotten-auteur/|title=Ken Hughes Forgotten Auteur|date=14 November 2020}}

In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "mediocre", writing: "Story stretches the arm of coincidence to inordinate lengths."{{Cite book |last=Quinlan |first=David |title=British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 |publisher=B.T. Batsford Ltd. |year=1984 |isbn=0-7134-1874-5 |location=London |pages=400}}

The radio play was meant to be broadcast by the BBC in early 1952 but was delayed due to concerns about its subject matter.{{cite news|url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49014350|title=Broadcast of Play Cancelled|newspaper=The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954)|location=Perth, WA|date=7 February 1952|page=9|publisher=National Library of Australia}}{{cite magazine|magazine=Variety|url=https://archive.org/details/variety185-1952-02/page/n218/mode/1up?q=+rienits|page=11|date=27 February 1952|title=BBC Rejects New Play}} It was adapted for Australian radio in 1953,{{cite news|url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article142720887|title=Saturday Night Drama: "Wide Boy"|newspaper=South Coast Times and Wollongong Argus|volume=LIII|issue=3|location=New South Wales, Australia|date=12 January 1953|page=2 (South Coast Times AND Wollongong Argus Feature Section)|via=National Library of Australia}} with Ray Barrett in the cast.{{cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230849238 |title=Plays and Players|newspaper=The Sun|issue=13,397|location=New South Wales, Australia|date=16 January 1953|page=10 (Late Final Extra)|via=National Library of Australia}} There were further Australian productions in 1956.

The story was also adapted for Australian TV, relocated to an Australian setting under the title Bodgie (1959)."Bodgies in Drama", Sydney Morning Herald, 10 August 1959 p 13

{{Reflist}}

• {{IMDb title|0045327}}
• [https://letterboxd.com/film/wide-boy/ Wide Boy] at Letterbox DVD
• [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1383129/index.html Wide Boy] at BFI Screenonline
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20190703205814/https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6bac9cd9 Wide Boy] at BFI

{{Ken Hughes}}

Category:1952 films

Category:1952 directorial debut films

Category:British crime drama films

Category:Works by Rex Rienits

Category:Films directed by Ken Hughes

Category:1952 crime drama films

Category:British black-and-white films

Category:Films about adultery in the United Kingdom

Category:Films scored by Eric Spear

Category:1950s English-language films

Category:1950s British films

Category:English-language crime drama films