The Good Die Young | |
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US 1955 cinema poster
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Directed by | Lewis Gilbert |
Produced by | John Woolf |
Screenplay by |
Vernon Harris Lewis Gilbert |
Based on |
The Good Die Young by Richard Macauley |
Starring |
Laurence Harvey Gloria Grahame Richard Basehart Joan Collins John Ireland Rene Ray Stanley Baker Margaret Leighton |
Music by | Georges Auric |
Cinematography | Jack Asher |
Edited by | Ralph Kemplen |
Production
company |
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Distributed by | IFD (UK) United Artists (US) |
Release date
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Running time
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94 min. |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The Good Die Young is a 1954 British film noir crime thriller film made by Remus Films, featuring a number of American characters. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert. The screenplay was based on the book of the same name written by Richard Macaulay.
The cast includes Laurence Harvey, Gloria Grahame, Joan Collins, Stanley Baker and Richard Basehart.
The film opens with four men in a car, apparently about to commit a serious crime. How each of the previously law-abiding men came to be in this position is then explored.
Mike (Stanley Baker) is an ageing boxer, in love with his wife (Rene Ray) but injured and unable to find a job. Joe (Richard Basehart) is an out-of-work clerk who needs to fly to the United States with his young wife (Joan Collins) to escape her clinging and unstable mother (Freda Jackson). Eddie (John Ireland) is an AWOL American airman with an unfaithful actress wife (Gloria Grahame). The last man, 'Rave' Ravenscourt (Laurence Harvey), is a 'gentleman' sponger and a scoundrel with gambling debts and the unscrupulous leader who lures the other three. The film reaches a bloody climax at Heathrow Airport.
The film was shot on location in London and at Shepperton Studios, with other scenes of BOAC Boeing Stratocruiser aircraft at Heathrow Airport and the District Line around Barbican. Laurence Harvey subsequently married Margaret Leighton, who played his wife in the film.