BAD BOY (1949)

A sort of secularized BOYS TOWN/’38, the bathetic Spencer Tracy/Mickey Rooney film about a ‘juvie camp’ run by a priest who believes there are no bad boys, this unexceptional B-pic, directed by indie specialist Kurt Neumann, is far easier to swallow, and a lot more effective than M-G-M’s indigestible prestige item. Audie Murphy takes his first leading role as a 17-yr-old tough guy, a crook who gets caught in a hotel robbery and sent to Lloyd Nolan’s ‘juvie ranch’ rather than ‘juvie jail’ and twenty years in prison when he turns 18. (Variety Club International supported the ranch thru donations made at movie theaters across the country.  Still collecting in the '70s. But now?)  You’ll guess the rest. But the film, helped by a tight budget that keeps things down to basics, does a neat job showing the workings at the ranch and the workings of Murphy’s tempest-tossed personality. Warm & polite in domestic settings and around women (Jane Wyatt, excellent as Nolan’s wife & helpmate), he shows a near psychotic hair-trigger temper when challenged. He really is depraved, an all-round rotten kid, a post-WWII sea change in levels of violence. Never much of an actor in any traditional sense, Murphy is able to deliver the necessary threat in his own way. Though a flashback to when he was 12, still played by the then 25-yr-old war hero, if with slightly neater hair, doesn’t work. Neither does the wrap up. But with excellent tech work for an indie (Karl Struss lensed) and fine supporting players (James Gleason, Rhys Williams, Selena Royle) buffing things up, it gets the job done.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, cringe-worthy BOYS TOWN helps puts this in perspective.