Bad Boy (1939) CRIME DRAMA



Stars: Johnny Downs, Rosalind Keith and Helen MacKellar
Director: Herbert Meyer
Writer: Richard C. Kahn (original screenplay)

Johnny Fraser (Johnny Downs) leaves his mother (Helen MacKellar) in their small home town and sets out for the big city. He obtains a job with a large firm of architects. Steve Carson (Archie Robbins), a fellow employee, is constantly flaunting the money he has won at the race track. Johnny also bets the races, but loses heavily and takes some of the firm’s money to cover his losses. Steve also introduces Johnny to Madelon Kirby (Rosalind Keith), a gold-digging night club singer. When the firm’s boss, McNeil (Holmes Herbert), learns that Johnny has embezzled some money, he fires him and has him jailed. Johnny’s mother comes to the aid of her son, but he can not find work when he is released. Through Steve Carson, Johnny becomes the head of a shady firm, Business Engineers, and is making a lot of money. Madelon enters the scene again and she and Johnny are married, and he is unaware that Steve is not only double-crossing him in the business but with Madelon also.

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7 Replies to “Bad Boy (1939) CRIME DRAMA”

  1. I try to bear the racism in films of this era, because I love so much about them otherwise. BUT, there is something about this particular brand of racism that really gets to me. I.e. where the Black person's life is meant to be solely as a help-meet to the White person's. All of their wants, desires, familial connections, ambitions for self, friends and family are relegated to not even an afterthought, but wholly subjugated to somewhere miles beneath those of the White person's life they are facilitating. I think I can bear things which are more obviously hateful, because this false friendship, which always ends in their being sacrificed, and not being given a second thought after that great sacrifice–well that just makes me more ill than I can take. A moral character was dragged down, and left to die alone, after risking his life to save the protagonist–and all because he unselfishly and with great caring, offered his help, time and time again. And he was even given a bit of a hard time, for the kind help he'd given during their time of hardship–just to stroke the ego of the protagonist. His one immoral choice was to allow himself to be badgered into continuing to help, once he'd decided to leave because he'd realized it was a criminal enterprise. And the only reason he was persuaded to stay, after having quit, was to protect the mom. So his immoral choice was still altruistic, not out of greed. It's still wrong, but that makes it a different level of wrong. And once he was dying, he didn't get a single mention. The mom didn't even worry, and she knew he'd gone over to the son's apartment to help her son…

  2. as my younger adult daughter would comment, "oh, dear." pretty bad.

    i remember Downs' tv show in san diego.

    then there's "business engineer's, inc." oh, dear, there's that pesky, misused apostrophe. sigh

  3. Another wise guy fool. For young men setting out on romance I recommend the movies DACR and Quicksand both portraying 
    how "love" can set a dangerous path for the unwary. Good movie, thank you.

  4. In all this hoopla of comments, nobody seemed to notice that Terry was none other than Spencer Williams, who played Andy Brown in the TV series "Amos 'n Andy".

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