Italian boxing promoter Giuseppe Vecchi (Frederick Valk) thinks he has found a young fighter, Johnny Flanagan (Tony Wright), that with some training could be a heavyweight champion. Vecchi's bombshell blonde wife, Lorna (Barbara Payton), whom he brought back from a trip to America, soon becomes a distraction. Flanagan finds success in the ring and has the confidence to compete in big money fights. Devious Lorna seduces the young fighter into an affair and convinces him there is a lot of money upon her husband's death. This beautiful blonde is bad, bad, bad. Also in the cast: Sidney James, John Slater, John Brooking and Marie Burke.

From the moment you see her naked leg while her hands roll a stocking up her leg, you know that she's truly bad to the bone. The camera finally shows the face, not unattractive, but certainly no Marilyn either. Married to a much older boxing trainer, she at first ignores his protégé Tony Wright but when she sees him fight, her juices begin to flow as her sexuality takes over her scheming mind. Even telling Wright off in a later scene and lying about her lust, you know she's got seduction on her mind, and ultimately murder.Barbara Payton is rumored to have been equally a femme fatal as much off screen as she was on, and that adds an intriguing twist to her wicked women. Obviously a rip-off of other similar film noir, this is more camp and a guilty pleasure than a classic. When Payton gets kissed by her obese slob of a husband (Frederick Valk), her disgust oozes off the screen with pure venom. The camp explodes when Valk's suspicious family arrives after the comically filmed "tragedy". His aging stereotypical mama, looking like something out of ancient Greek tragedy, and his equally severe looking sister adds to the over-top melodrama.This is B bad movie making at its most delightful with one dimensional performances and clichéd dialog that is laughably bad. Yet, the camera work is really good, so you can see this as being pretty influential with the new wave directors getting to make their mark on film.

I saw this under its alternate title "Bad Blonde." Though Barbara Payton is billed before the title, I was confused: Yes, the actress had quite a reputation. She had life that was messy and ultimately very sad. It was more sordid and more interesting than the tabloid girls of today.And the character she played was bad, to be sure. Yet, the movie makes much more sense under its original title: It's primarily about the character played by Tony Wright. Ms. Payton wears some alluring costumes but we hardly ever see Wright with his shirt on. When he's not boxing, he's swimming.It's a sad story. Sort of a film noir, yes. But we feel bad for the basically decent people who are trampled on because of others' greed and desires. Frederick Valk is excellent as Giuseppi, the man drawn into representing the title character in his fight career.The plot reminded me, particularly in his character, of Tennessee Williams" "Orpheus Descending." An interesting movie, if ultimately not an especially good one.

Much as 1948's Whiplash was a cross-knockoff of two John Garfield vehicles (Body and Soul, Humoresque), Bad Blonde grafts Body and Soul to The Postman Always Rings Twice, then transplants the hybrid to alien English soil. At a carnival boxing concession, young Johnny Flanagan (Tony Wright, who looks like young John Kennedy) takes up the challenge and reveals himself as quite the pugilist. Concessionaire Sid James, a savvy judge of boxing talent, sees his opportunity to make a comback in the prizefight racket. He gets Wright signed up with rich old Italian promoter Frederick Valk, who on a recent tour of America has brought back Barbara Payton as a souvenir. When Wright catches a furtive glimpse of Payton smoothing a stocking along her thigh, he's struck tongue-tied. She's not so bashful, licking her lips as she rakes her eyes up his torso, stripped for the ring. Soon, under the guise of training at Valk's country manor, they're having clandestine clinches in the bracken. But, it apparently being true about leaving one's fight in the bedroom, Wright starts losing his timing, and, more urgently, an important match Valk arranges, thus jinxing his career. But Payton has money, or rather will have once her husband goes down for the count. She feigns a suicide attempt and a pregnancy, then dangles the possibility of murder. The diffident Wright, thinking the child is his, falls in with the plan...Somebody besides Payton must have been obsessed with Wright's body: The camera finds every opportunity to linger over it, in the ring and under the water, in trunks and towels and bathing briefs. Did this male-fixated aspect of the movie, originally titled The Flanagan Boy with Wright its title character, cause sufficient panic to have the movie renamed and remarketed? As Bad Blonde, it capitalizes on Payton's aggressive allures, soon to be available on the open market: The actress would drift into tabloid scandals, check-kiting and ultimately prostitution. Only four more films would remain before her last, Murder Is My Beat, in 1955. Twelve years later she would be dead of alcohol-related causes.