The Good Die Young (1954)
Directed by Lewis Gilbert

Film Review

One of a handful of truly impressive film noir crime dramas to be made in Britain, The Good Die Young benefits from a mixed Anglo-American cast which gives it a realism and harder edge than many contemporary British thrillers.  The film was directed by Lewis Gilbert, one of Britain's most prolific filmmakers, distinguished by such films as the wartime biopic Carve Her Name with Pride (1958), although he is now best known for the three James Bond movies he made in the 1960s and '70s, notably The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).  Gilbert had no qualms about appropriating some of the familiar iconography of American film noir, and he employed these expertly to create a tense and suspenseful drama whose main strength is a particularly gripping denouement.

Laurence Harvey makes a slick and delightfully sinister villain in the charming Tom Ripley psychopath tradition; he would later marry Margaret Leighton, who plays his wife in the film, and would hit the big time when he starred in Room at the Top (1959), which was directed by Jack Clayton, who was executive produce on this film.  The film features Joan Collins in her last British film before Howard Hawks hired her as his leading lady in Land of the Pharaohs (1955), launching her international screen career.

The Good Die Young is a somewhat let down by its contrived plot and a leaning towards the kind of over-egged melodrama that had become dated by the mid-1950s.  However, the superb direction and faultless performances more than make up for the deficiencies in the script.  The Good Die Young is essential viewing for any devotee of the British crime thriller, offering a foretaste of the stylish hardboiled thrillers which were to explode onto cinema screens in the following decades. Other essential examples of 'Brit noir' from this era include Brighton Rock (1947), The Third Man (1949) and The October Man (1947).

Film Synopsis

Four men, all law abiding citizens, decide to rob a mail van.  Mike is a retired boxer who is unable to find work after having had his hand amputated.   Joe is an unemployed office clerk who needs money to return to the United States with his pregnant wife.  Eddie is a US airman who has deserted after learning that his wife, a famous actress, has been having an affair with her director.  Rave considers himself a gentleman of leisure, sponging off his wife, until she decides she no longer wants to underwrite his dissolute lifestyle.  Four men, each desperate to make easy money.  All they have to do is to steal a few sacks of used notes from a mail van and all their problems will be over...