Cosh Boy 1953

Led by 16-year-old Roy Walsh, James Kenney leads a post-war London street gang that specializes in snatching women’s purses, using their membership in a boys’ club as cover. During a club-sponsored dance, Roy meets Rene Collins, Joan Collins, the sister of a gang member, and the pair’s uneasy connection begins to shape the course of events. Over time, Rene submits to his sexual advances, an arrangement that leads to a startling consequence.

Later, upon visiting a doctor, Rene learns she’s pregnant. She tells Roy, who wants nothing more to do with her, and Rene’s crisis deepens as she attempts suicide. Meantime, Roy’s mother, Elsie Walsh, Betty Ann Davies is seeing Bob Stevens, Robert Ayres, who pressurefully urges a quick marriage so he can claim authority over Roy. He promises to “take Roy in hand,” a notion that fuels Roy’s growing hatred for Bob.

Bob is the assistant manager at the Palindrome dance hall, a detail that situates the gang’s activities in a familiar urban space. One evening, Roy’s gang robs the Palindrome’s box-office take, and during the heist Roy shoots a staff member, leaving him seriously wounded. Later that night in a hospital, Rene’s mother witnesses her daughter’s recovery from her suicide attempt and rushes to Elsie’s flat with a mob of concerned women, shouting for Roy to be brought forward. Bob arrives, urging Rene’s mother to go home, and then he kicks in the door to Roy’s bedroom, where the boy has taken refuge.

Bob decides to give Roy a hard lesson, and the scene builds toward its tense apex as the belt he wields becomes a focal point. The police arrive just as Bob is ready to administer punishment, and he claims to be Roy’s stepfather, having just married Elsie that very morning. The senior officer offers a quiet, ceremonial nod, even as he and his partner consider arresting another gang member and returning for Roy later. Bob begins to thrash Roy as a crowd of women outside cries out in Roy’s name, while the detectives walk away into the night, leaving the outcome unresolved and the violence momentarily suspended.