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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1950s
    Movies - 1950s Movies - Y 2 Mins Read

    Yellow Balloon, The (1953)

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    A young boy dies while playing in the ruins of a London neighbourhood destroyed during the blitz. His friend Frankie (Andrew Ray) – who was with him at the time and blames himself – is blackmailed by a local ne’er-do-well called Len (William Sylvester) and is forced to steal from his parents or be accused of causing his friend’s death.

    It will get worse for Frankie before it gets better as Len persuades him to steal for him with the sob story that he needs the money desperately and the boy is the only one who can help.

    yellowballoon6

    Frankie responds by trailing around the city at night and watching for opportunities to nick some cash, although what he does end up stealing is a pineapple from the fruit barrow of Sid James.

    Len doesn’t have any use for the fruit, but he has an idea that will place the child in danger when he is used as a way into a pub after closing time one night so that Len may rob it.

    Needless to say, this ends badly, and the climax sees a murderous Len tracking Frankie through the tunnels of the London Underground.

    A typical example of the many dour dramas churned out by postwar British cinema. Exploiting the period’s austere atmosphere and run-down landscapes, it owes much to such Hollywood “child in peril” pictures as The Window.

    In his second film as writer/director, J Lee Thompson would have done better to focus on the relationship between timid Frankie and fugitive killer Len, but he can’t resist throwing in a social message and a family crisis that slows the action and dilutes the suspense.

    Kenneth More flops as the doting dad, but Kathleen Ryan makes a monstrously shrewish mother.

    yellowballoonFrankie Palmer
    Andrew Ray
    Emily Palmer
    Kathleen Ryan
    Ted Palmer
    Kenneth More
    Len Turner
    William Sylvester
    Constable Chapman
    Bernard Lee
    Sunday School Teacher
    Veronica Hurst
    Mary
    Hy Hazell
    Iris
    Sandra Dorne
    Potter
    Campbell Singer
    Charlie
    Sidney James
    Mrs Jessie Stokes
    Marjorie Rhodes
    Pawnbroker
    Eliot Makeham
    Sid the spiv
    Peter Jones
    Ron
    Stephen Fenemore

    Director
    J. Lee Thompson

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