Plot
On his 17th birthday, shy and bespectacled "Georgie" LaMain, is dared by classmates to kiss a girl, which he is reluctant to do. At his father Andy's bar, beneath a sign warning "No Minors Allowed," George asks if Andy's girlfriend, Frances, will be there too, but Andy is evasive. George is presented with a birthday cake but fails to blow out all the candles. Unexpectedly, influential sports columnist Al Judge, who walks with a cane, enters the bar and orders George's father to strip off his shirt and kneel. Andy passively complies, and Judge savagely beats him with his cane. Andy will not explain why he submitted to the pain and humiliation, and his bartender Flanagan urges George to let the issue lie. However, as Flanagan assists Andy, George takes some of his father's clothes to look more adult, as well as his father's gun, and leaves.
Stopping briefly at a nearby pharmacy, George is asked by the druggist to look after a baby for a moment, where George poses with the gun in front of a mirror. With no clear direction to take, George begins a night journey, going first to a boxing match that he and his father were to attend to celebrate his birthday, hoping that he will find Al Judge there. At the arena, George sells his father's ticket but is accused of ticket scalping by a conman posing as a police officer, who takes the ticket money. Inside the arena, the man who bought the ticket, Professor Cooper, a journalism teacher, explains what happened and shares his disgust of Al Judge.
Cooper takes George to one of Judge's haunts, where George encounters the conman who robbed him and wins a fight with him. At another club, he also meets Cooper's girlfriend Julie and her sister Marion and has his first drink. George is entranced by a Black singer and tries to compliment her on her talent and beauty as they leave, but uses an unintentionally racist phrase that he regrets.
At Julie's apartment, George passes out but wakes to find that Marion has been watching him. She expresses sympathy and concern and the two kiss, but George reacts hostilely and leaves when he finds that Marion had tried to hide his gun. At Judge's newspaper, he learns the journalist's address and goes there to confront him. Facing George's gun, Judge explains that he had punished Andy because Frances, the missing girlfriend at the birthday party, was his sister and that she had killed herself when Andy would not marry her. George cannot bring himself to shoot Judge, but the writer attacks him and in the struggle, Judge is shot. George seeks shelter with Marion and Cooper for a while, but when he returns to the bar, he sees that police have come to arrest his father for Judge's shooting. Afraid and confused and still holding the gun, George confesses but learns that Judge was only wounded. His father explains that he had not been able to marry Frances because was still married to George's mother, who had run off with another man. Andy had not wanted his son to grow up hating his mother. He persuades George to surrender the gun, and the two, professing their love for each other, go away with the police.
Joseph Walton Losey III was an American theatre and film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s, he moved to Europe where he made the remainder of his films, mostly in the United Kingdom. Among the most critically and commercially successful were the films with screenplays by Harold Pinter: The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971).
Accident is a 1967 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey. Written by Harold Pinter, it is an adaptation of the 1965 novel Accident by Nicholas Mosley. It is the second of three Losey–Pinter collaborations; the others being The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971). At the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, Accident won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury award. It also won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association.
The Servant is a 1963 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey. It was written by Harold Pinter, who adapted Robin Maugham's 1948 novella of the same name. The film stars Dirk Bogarde, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig and James Fox.
M is a 1951 American film noir directed by Joseph Losey. It is a remake of Fritz Lang's 1931 German film of the same title about a child murderer. This version shifts the location of action from Berlin to Los Angeles and changes the killer's name from Hans Beckert to Martin W. Harrow. Both versions of M were produced by Seymour Nebenzal, whose son, Harold, was associate producer of the 1951 version.
Secret Ceremony is a 1968 British drama psychological horror thriller film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum.
The Prowler is a 1951 American film noir thriller film directed by Joseph Losey that stars Van Heflin and Evelyn Keyes. The film was produced by Sam Spiegel and was written by Dalton Trumbo. Because Trumbo was blacklisted at the time, the screenplay was credited to his friend, screenwriter Hugo Butler, as a front.
Modesty Blaise is a 1966 British spy comedy film directed by Joseph Losey, produced by Joseph Janni and loosely based on the comic strip of the same name by Peter O'Donnell, who co-wrote the original story upon which Evan Jones and Harold Pinter based their screenplay. It stars Monica Vitti as "Modesty", opposite Terence Stamp as Willie Garvin and Dirk Bogarde as her nemesis Gabriel. The cast also includes Harry Andrews, Clive Revill, Michael Craig, Alexander Knox, Rossella Falk and Tina Aumont. The film's music was composed by Johnny Dankworth and the theme song, "Modesty", sung by pop duo David and Jonathan. It was Vitti's first English-speaking role.
Boom! is a 1968 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Noël Coward. It was adapted by Tennessee Williams from his own play The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore.
The Boy with Green Hair is a 1948 American fantasy-drama film in Technicolor directed by Joseph Losey in his feature film directorial debut. It stars Dean Stockwell as Peter, a young war orphan who is subject to ridicule after his hair mysteriously turns green, and is based on the 1946 short story of the same name by Betsy Beaton. Co-stars include Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, and Barbara Hale.
The Go-Between is a 1971 British historical drama film directed by Joseph Losey. Its screenplay by Harold Pinter is an adaptation of the 1953 novel The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley. The film stars Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave and Dominic Guard.
The Criminal is a 1960 British neo-noir crime film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Stanley Baker, Sam Wanamaker, Grégoire Aslan, Jill Bennett, and Margit Saad. Baker plays Johnny Bannion, a recently-paroled gangster who is sent back to prison after robbing a racetrack, with both the authorities and the criminal underworld looking for the money.
Eva, released in the United Kingdom as Eve, and in the United States as The Devil’s Woman a 1962 Italian-French co-production drama film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Jeanne Moreau, Stanley Baker, and Virna Lisi. Its screenplay is adapted from James Hadley Chase's 1945 novel Eve.
The Assassination of Trotsky is a 1972 historical thriller film directed by Joseph Losey. It dramatizes the killing of exiled Soviet revolutionary Leon Trotsky by NKVD agent Frank Jacson in Mexico City in 1940. It stars Richard Burton as Trotsky and Alain Delon as Jacson, along with Romy Schneider, Valentina Cortese, and Jean Desailly.
The Damned is a 1962 British science fiction horror film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Macdonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Viveca Lindfors and Oliver Reed. The screenplay was by Evan Jones, based on H. L. Lawrence's 1960 novel The Children of Light. It was a Hammer Film production.
Time Without Pity is a 1957 British film noir thriller film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Michael Redgrave, Ann Todd, Leo McKern, Paul Daneman, Peter Cushing, Alec McCowen and Renee Houston. It is about a father trying to save his son from execution for murder.
A Family Affair is a 1937 American comedy film directed by George B. Seitz and based on the 1928 play Skidding by Aurania Rouverol. It was the first of 16 films now known as the Andy Hardy series, although Andy Hardy did not become the main character in the series until several more installments had been made. The film stars Lionel Barrymore, Cecilia Parker, Eric Linden, Mickey Rooney and Charley Grapewin.
The Sleeping Tiger is a 1954 British film noir directed by Joseph Losey and starring Alexis Smith, Dirk Bogarde and Alexander Knox. It was Losey's first British feature, which he directed under the pseudonym of Victor Hanbury due to being blacklisted in the McCarthy Era. It was shot at Walton Studios and on location in London. The film's sets were designed by the art director John Stoll. It was released by Anglo-Amalgamated while in America it was distributed by Astor Pictures.
Imbarco a mezzanotte is a 1952 Italian drama film directed by Joseph Losey and featuring Paul Muni.
The Lawless is a 1950 American film noir directed by Joseph Losey and featuring Macdonald Carey, Gail Russell and Johnny Sands.
John Hugh Elliott was an American actor who appeared on Broadway and in over 300 films during his career. He worked sporadically during the silent film era, but with the advent of sound his career took off, where he worked constantly for 25 years, finding a particular niche in "B" westerns.
