Rag Doll [Young, Willing and Eager] *** (1961, Jess Conrad, Hermione Baddeley, Kenneth Griffith, Christina Gregg, Patrick Magee) – Classic Movie Review 10,807

The 1961 British B-movie crime film Rag Doll gained a new audience in the 2000s in response to Jess Conrad’s elevation to cult status as a pre-Beatles British icon.

Director Lance Comfort’s 1961 crime drama Rag Doll [Young, Willing and Eager] is an enjoyable minor nostalgic old black and white British filler thriller, mainly a vehicle for handsome Sixties pop star turned actor Jess Conrad (who spent most of the Seventies touring British theatres in the Andrew Lloyd Webber show Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) but also for Christina Gregg as the young, willing and eager Rag Doll of the title.

It is only a humble B-movie of its time, just 67 minutes long, but it has it significant charms, especially its flavour of London night life of the time and the performers. Conrad is certainly engaging in one of his first starring movie roles as good-hearted night club singing burglar Shane, who soon attracts the eye of Carol (Christina Gregg), the teenage stepdaughter of an abusive alcoholic stepfather.

Carol flees to London from her stepfather and is befriended by Princess Sophita, aka Auntie (Hermione Baddeley), a tough, middle-aged arcade fortune teller, who also works in one of four coffee bars owned by Mort Wilson (Kenneth Griffith), who becomes Carol’s protector. Then she hears Shane sing at Wilson’s club and falls in love with him, even though Wilson and the Princess warn her that he is a crook.

There is excellent work from those first-rate star character actors Baddeley, Kenneth Griffith as the seedy, middle-aged coffee bar/ nightclub owner Mort Wilson and Patrick Magee as the heroine’s stepfather, Flynn, and Frank Forsyth plays the police superintendent. The story is busy and flavoursome, and builds to a strongly melodramatic conclusion, and the mood is quite gritty and noirish, and there is excellent black and white camerawork by Basil Emmott.

It is filmed at Walton Studios, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, but also on location in London’s West End, and its appealing nostalgia value includes Conrad coming out of the late great Astoria cinema in Charing Cross Road, where The Alamo is showing. This is also an important plot point. When Shane needs an alibi for a break-in, he gets tickets for him and Carol to see The Alamo. He makes Carol his alibi by nipping out during the film, breaking into Wilson’s house and stealing his money, telling her to keep their ticket stubs. There is more nostalgia. Conrad sings ‘Why Am I Living’ with The Dave Clark Five as his back-up band.

Oh what a time it was!

Also in the cast are Patrick Jordan, Michael Wynne, Frank Forsyth, Linda Castle, Marie Devereux, Eve Eden, Leon Garcia, David Gregory, Frank Hawkins and John Line.

Rag Doll [Young, Willing and Eager] is directed by Lance Comfort, runs 67 minutes, is made by Mancunian Film Corporation and Blakeley’s Films, is released by Butcher’s Film Distributors (1960) (UK) and Manson Distributing (1960) (US), is written by Brock Williams and Derry Quinn, from an original story by Brock Williams, is shot in black and white by Basil Emmott, is produced by Tom Blakeley and is scored by Martin Slavin.

It had a Region 2 DVD release in 2009 in a double bill with Comfort’s 1962 film The Painted Smile.

The cast are Jess Conrad as Joe Shane, Hermione Baddeley as Auntie, Kenneth Griffith as Mort Wilson, Christina Gregg as Carol, Patrick Magee as Flynn, Patrick Jordan as Wills, Michael Wynne as Bellamy, Frank Forsyth as Superintendent Linda Castle, Marie Devereux, Eve Eden, Leon Garcia, David Gregory, Frank Hawkins and John Line.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,807

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Jess Conrad: ‘DIRECTOR TOLD ME TO TAKE MY SHIRT OF FOR MY FANS IN A FILM I STARRED IN — RAG DOLL’.