Decent melodrama - always something happening. This film inspired a moral panic - it tells the story of a young Jimmy Cagney style teen who beats up ladies. They were called cosh boys because they used coshes.
The lead is James Kenney who I'm surprised didn't become more of a name - maybe the market for teen gangsters was small.
Snotty Brit critics whined about Joan Collins not being right as a lower class girl but she's lovely and effective - I believed her as a naive thing in over her head, the hot girl in a poor area.
Solid acting across the cast from the teens to the adults. The exception is pompous wooden American Robert Ayers as the boyfriend of Kenney's mum who comes in and smacks the kid around - the finale is the cops giving him time to give the kid a thrashing. Because that's what was wrong, see.
Directed by Lewis Gilbert who does an accomplished job. It has life and energy.
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