STANLEY BAKER & LAURENCE HARVEY IN 'THE GOOD DIE YOUNG'

Lawrence Harvey's the gun here Year: 1954 Rating: ***1/2

Lewis Gilbert's London-set Noir Melodrama would lack some of the Melodrama without the two Americans countering the two Englishmen, although Stanley Baker's working class boxer does get theatrical, but only outside the ring...

Staring out with four men in a car, guns drawn, about to commit a robbery, we experience backstories of each: With John Ireland, a broke, whiny GI married to cheating movie star Gloria Grahame — a horribly unbelievable, mismatched couple to begin with. And Richard Basehart with pregnant Joan Collins and a crazy mother-in-law, attempting suicide every time they attempt flying stateside: So one American needs airfare while the other needs a divorce... making both weak candidates for crime, and saving the best for last... 

And the only character lacking the title's idealistic GOOD and in that, the equally charming and weaselly Laurence Harvey, married to a glamorous artist and trying to squeeze inheritance out a very living father after wifey kills his allowance, makes a fantastically deceptive, unashamedly hedonistic, cruel and cutthroat manipulator, especially towards Baker's crippled boxer (he'd lost his hand), needing cash the most. The two polar opposite Brits would have created a tighter, edgier tale. But the highly anticipated postal-truck heist leads to the kind of collective action the story had been begging for. Making one forgive all the soap operatic fluff that's still pretty entertaining. As soaps can very often be. 

Laurence Harvey, Stanley Baker, Richard Basehart and John Ireland in The Good Die Young

Thomas Gallagher, Leslie Dwyer and Stanley Baker in The Good Die Young

Stanley Baker in The Good Die Young

Stanley Baker in The Good Die Young

Leslie Dwyer with Stanley Baker in The Good Die Young

Stanley Baker in The Good Die Young

Stanley Baker in The Good Die Young

Laurence Harvey in The Good Die Young

Richard Basehart and Joan Collins in The Good Die Young

Stanley Baker in The Good Die Young with a miscast Rene Ray

Richard Basehart and Laurence Harvey in The Good Die Young

Stanley Baker and Richard Basehart in The Good Die Young

Gloria Grahame in The Good Die Young