{{Short description|1954 British film by Lewis Gilbert}} {{for|similar titles|Good Die Young (disambiguation){{!}}Good Die Young}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2016}} {{Use British English|date=May 2016}} {{Infobox film | name = The Good Die Young | caption = US 1955 cinema poster | image = The Good Die Young FilmPoster.jpeg | director = [[Lewis Gilbert]] | producer = [[John Woolf (producer)|John Woolf]] <br> [[Jack Clayton]] | screenplay = {{ubl|[[Vernon Harris]]|Lewis Gilbert}} | based_on = {{based on|''The Good Die Young''|[[Richard Macaulay]]}} | starring = {{ubl|[[Laurence Harvey]]|[[Gloria Grahame]]|[[Richard Basehart]]|[[Joan Collins]]|[[John Ireland (actor)|John Ireland]]|[[Rene Ray]]|[[Stanley Baker]]|[[Margaret Leighton]]}} | music = [[Georges Auric]] | cinematography = [[Jack Asher]] | editing = [[Ralph Kemplen]] | studio = [[Remus Films]] | distributor = {{ubl|[[Independent Film Distributors]] (UK)|[[United Artists]] (US)}} | released = {{Film date|df=y|1954|03|02|UK|1955|11|29|US}} | runtime = 100 minutes | country = United Kingdom | language = English | budget = }} '''''The Good Die Young''''' is a 1954 British [[crime film]] directed by [[Lewis Gilbert]] and starring [[Laurence Harvey]], [[Gloria Grahame]], [[Joan Collins]], [[Stanley Baker]], [[Richard Basehart]] and [[John Ireland (actor)|John Ireland]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Good Die Young |url=https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150030402 |access-date=28 October 2023 |website=British Film Institute Collections Search}}</ref> It was made by [[Remus Films]] from a screenplay by [[Vernon Harris]] and Gilbert based on the 1953 novel of the same name by [[Richard Macaulay]]. It tells the story of four men in [[London]] with no criminal past whose marriages and finances are collapsing and, meeting in a pub, are tempted to redeem their situations by a robbery.

==Plot== Mike is an injured ex-boxer unable to find a job and penniless after his wife Angela, who he loves, gives their life savings to her criminal brother. Joe has been fired from his clerical job in the USA to reclaim Mary, his pregnant English wife, who feels unable to escape her clinging and unstable mother. Eddie deserts the US Air Force in an effort to regain Denise, his unfaithful actress wife. The fourth man is Rave, decorated in the war but now a womaniser and gambler sponging off his rich wife Eve, who wants to take him away to [[Kenya]].

Rave has started an affair with a girl who works in a post office that handles consignments of used banknotes. He cajoles the other three into a night raid, supplying revolvers for show. In fact, to the horror of the others, he opens fire on approaching police and, when Mike tries to surrender, shoots him down as well. The three survivors make off with £100,000, sharing some and hiding the rest in a tomb in a churchyard. When Joe is not looking, Rave then kills Eddie but Joe outwits him and escapes.

Collecting his wife Mary, he rushes to the airport for a flight to the USA. Also there, waiting for Rave, is his wife Eve who has booked them a flight to [[Nairobi]]. Joe sees Rave arrive and shoots him, but as he falls he shoots Joe. All four men have died, leaving nobody who knows where the money is hidden.

==Cast== {{div col}} * [[Laurence Harvey]] as Miles 'Rave' Ravenscourt * [[Margaret Leighton]] as Eve Ravenscourt * [[Stanley Baker]] as Mike Morgan * [[Rene Ray]] as Angela Morgan * [[John Ireland (actor)|John Ireland]] as Eddie Blaine * [[Gloria Grahame]] as Denise Blaine * [[Richard Basehart]] as Joe Halsey * [[Joan Collins]] as Mary Halsey * [[Robert Morley]] as Sir Francis Ravenscourt, Rave's father * [[Freda Jackson]] as Mrs Freeman, Mary's mother * James Kenney as Dave, Angela's brother * [[Susan Shaw]] as Doris, girl in the pub * [[Lee Patterson]] as Tod Maslin * [[Sandra Dorne]] as pretty girl * [[Leslie Dwyer]] as Stookey * Patricia McCarron as Carole * [[George Rose (actor)|George Rose]] as Bunny * [[Joan Heal]] as woman * [[Walter Hudd]] as Dr Reed * [[Harold Siddons]] as hospital doctor * [[Marianne Stone]] as Molly, the barmaid * [[Edward Judd]] as Ron Simpson * [[MacDonald Parke]] as Mr. Carruthers * [[Patricia Owens]] as Winnie {{div col end}}

==Production== The film was presented by the [[John and James Woolf|Woolf Brothers]]' Romulus company, who made British films targeted at international audiences.<ref name="ink">{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-film-moguls-john-and-james-woolf/|date=17 January 2026|access-date=17 January 2026|title=Forgotten British Film Moguls: John and James Woolf}}</ref> This meant they used American stars.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248760028 |title=Gloria to Make a British Film |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)|The Daily Telegraph]] |volume=XIV |issue=44 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=20 September 1953 |accessdate=5 September 2020 |page=38 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Gilbert says that James Woolf found the book and gave it to him, but that Woolf insisted Laurence Harvey be cast.<ref name="eleven">{{cite web|url=https://historyproject.org.uk/interview/lewis-gilbert|website=British Entertainment History Project|title=Lewis Gilbert Side 11|year=1996|first=Roy|last=Fowler}}</ref> The film was an early lead role for Stanley Baker.<ref name="bake">{{cite web|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-moguls-stanley-baker/|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|date=28 December 2025|access-date=28 December 2025|magazine=Filmink|title=Forgotten British Moguls: Stanley Baker}}</ref>

Filming started on 28 September 1953.<ref>Kaye and Crosby Teamed in Movie: Comedian Signs at Paramount to Replace O'Connor, III – Script Will Be Changed By Thomas M. Pryors. Special to ''The New York Times''. 19 Aug 1953: 24.</ref> [[Jack Clayton]] was credited as the associate producer of this Remus production.

The novel's original setting was [[Beverly Hills]] but for the film this was changed to London.<ref>Times staff (January 29, 1950). [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times/84760019/ "Studios Show Interest in 'Good Die Young'"] ''The Los Angeles Times''. Pt.&nbsp;IV, p.&nbsp;2. Retrieved September 5, 2021.</ref> Shooting was on location in London and at [[Shepperton Studios]], with other scenes of [[Pan Am]] [[Boeing 377|Boeing Stratocruiser]] aircraft at [[Heathrow Airport]] and the London Underground [[District Line]] around [[Barbican tube station|Barbican]]. The sets were designed by the [[art director]] [[Bernard Robinson (production designer)|Bernard Robinson]].

The British bank financing the film required that the novel's bank robbery be switched to a post office in the film.<ref>''Lewis Gilbert Interview'' ''Cinema Retro'' Vol. 7 Issue 19</ref> Gilbert claimed in one interview that the characters were not allowed to use guns due to the censor; however, although the majority of Gilbert's memories of the film being "watered down" for the finished screenplay are correct, this memory was incorrect.<ref name="his">{{cite web|title=Lewis Gilbert Side 6|url=https://historyproject.org.uk/interview/lewis-gilbert|first=Roy|last=Fowler|website=British Entertainment History Project|year=1996}}</ref> Guns were ultimately used in the heist and subsequent scenes.

Laurence Harvey subsequently married [[Margaret Leighton]], who played his wife in the film. [[Kirk Douglas]] visited Gloria Grahame and John Ireland on the set and appeared in the film as an extra as a joke.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article131646632 |title=Hollywood Diary |newspaper=[[The World's News]] |issue=2733 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=8 May 1954 |accessdate=5 September 2020 |page=28 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

==Release== The film opened in the United Kingdom on 2 March 1954, with general release following on 5 April.<ref>F Maurice Speed, ''Film Review 1954–55'' Macdonald & Co 1954</ref> The following year it was released in America by [[United Artists]] and France by [[Cinédis]].

Gilbert says the film "did quite well" and "had quite a run in America" because of the cast.<ref name="his"/> James Woolf estimated Romulus made around $100,000 from the US run.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=James Woolf details hazards of British prod in CinemaScope|access-date=2 April 2025|url=https://archive.org/details/variety198-1955-05/page/n233/mode/1up?|date=25 May 1955|magazine=Variety|page=20}}</ref>

== Critical reception == In contemporary reviews,''[[The Monthly Film Bulletin]]'' wrote: "Director Lewis Gilbert again displays a flair for kaleidoscopic presentation and crowns the poignant and gripping portrait of London life with hair-raising street gun fighting and electric railway track thrills. Tender and violent in turns, it'll rivet the masses to their seats."<ref>{{Cite journal |date=4 March 1954 |title=The Good Die Young |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1305827503 |journal=[[Monthly Film Bulletin]] |volume=444 |issue=2436 |pages=120 |id={{ProQuest|1305827503}}}}</ref> ''[[Kine Weekly]]'' said "High-voltage romantic crime melodrama, inspired by a recent sensational mail robbery.&nbsp;... A prodigious, star-packed Anglo-American cast meets all acting demands, and the direction is both forthright and imaginative."<ref>{{Cite journal |date=4 March 1954 |title=The Marked One |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2732605561 |journal=[[Kine Weekly]] |volume=444 |issue=2436 |pages=20 |id={{ProQuest|2732605561}} }}</ref> ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' said: "There is a major lineup of talent in this independently-made British pic, but fulfillment does not quite come up to expectations. Although there is basically a tense dramatic theme, the scrappy treatment, necessitated by the omnibus type of story, robs the film of some of its suspense and values."<ref>{{Cite journal |date=17 March 1954 |title=The Good Die Young |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/963156390 |journal=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |volume=194 |issue=2 |pages=16 |id={{ProQuest|963156390}} }}</ref>

In ''British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959'' [[David Quinlan (film critic)|David Quinlan]] rated the film as "average", writing: "Dark, gloomy thriller."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Quinlan |first=David |title=British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 |publisher=[[Batsford Books|B.T. Batsford Ltd.]] |year=1984 |isbn=0-7134-1874-5 |location=London |pages=316}}</ref>

[[Leslie Halliwell]] said: "Glum all-star melodrama which set a pattern for such things; worth waiting for is the climactic chase through underground stations."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Halliwell |first=Leslie |title=Halliwell's Film Guide |publisher=Paladin |year=1989 |isbn=0586088946 |edition=7th |location=London |pages=414}}</ref> ''Filmink'' argued "the heist was introduced too late."<ref name="ink"/>

''The [[Radio Times]] Guide to Films'' gave the film 3/5 stars, calling it a "well-crafted British heist thriller, atmospherically directed by Lewis Gilbert."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Radio Times Guide to Films |publisher=[[Immediate Media Company]] |year=2017 |isbn=9780992936440 |edition=18th |location=London |pages=376}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * {{Screenonline title|488021|The Good Die Young}} * {{IMDb title|0047040|The Good Die Young}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20130625154251/http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/76693/The-Good-Die-Young/ ''The Good Die Young''] at [[TCMDB]]

{{Lewis Gilbert}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Good Die Young, The}} [[Category:1954 films]] [[Category:British crime drama films]] [[Category:British black-and-white films]] [[Category:Films based on American novels]] [[Category:Films directed by Lewis Gilbert]] [[Category:Films set in London]] [[Category:Films shot in London]] [[Category:1954 crime drama films]] [[Category:Films scored by Georges Auric]] [[Category:British heist films]] [[Category:Films shot at Shepperton Studios]] [[Category:1954 English-language films]] [[Category:1954 British films]] [[Category:English-language crime drama films]]