Cosh Boy (aka The Slasher) (1953)

A 16 year old brat ... er, I mean juvenile delinquent (James Kenney) and his gang beat up little old ladies and aging hookers and steal their purses. His wimpy mother (Betty Ann Davies) lets him walk all over her. When he meets a teen-aged ninny (Joan Collins) at a dance, he forces himself on her, knocks her up and dumps her but, of course, she loves him through it all. Abysmal pretty much sums it up. Before the U.S. explored the juvenile delinquent crisis with such films as THE WILD ONE and REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, the British tried their hand at it and if this wretched film is any example, Yanks: 2, Brits: 0. Kenney in a role that would probably have made anyone else a star is so awful that his bad acting becomes almost fascinating to study. The film concludes that all the kid needed was a spanking to straighten him out. If I hadn't known director Lewis Gilbert for his better later work like ALFIE and THE GREENGAGE SUMMER, I would have thought he was one of the dregs of his profession. With Hermione Gingold as aging tart, Hermione Baddeley as Collins' mum and Laurence Naismith. Retitled THE SLASHER in the U.S. presumably because it was figured Americans wouldn't be able to figure out what a "cosh boy" was.