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.

In 1950, American producer Robert Lippert formed a business alliance with Hammer studios. Under the agreement, Lippert would provide American acting talent - frequently shop-worn stars or just supporting actors who fancied a profitable trip out of the country - while Hammer would supply the rest of the cast and the production facilities. Together they would split the profits. Famous for his concern with the bottom line, Lippert produced over 140 films between 1946 and 1955, characteristically genre pieces such as I Shot Jesse James or Rocketship XM. For the British deal, most of the films were noir-ish thrillers - and include this title.Directed by American B-meister Reginald La Borg, The Flanagan Boy is a hugely enjoyable tale of a young boxer whose career is destroyed by the blonde of the US title, the aptly cast Barbara Peyton. Peyton, whose short career was marred by disastrous excesses and liaisons in her private life, is marvellous as the scheming fatale Lorna Vechi, whose marriage to a doting boxing manager is a sham, and whose sexual predations draw in most men around her. Surprisingly explicit in showing female desire (at one point Lorna licks her lips in close up as she eyes the torso of the well formed fighter, standing all self- conscious and sweaty after a bout), as others have noticed this is a film that recalls the similar shenanigans of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). Sid James makes an appearance as the original manager of the doomed boxer, and it's a film that still bears up well.

The curious "Bad Blonde" (1953) was allegedly based on the 1949 novel "The Flanagan Boy" (also the movie's UK release title) by Max Catto. Many reviewers have pointed out similarities between this movie and more famous film noir outings like "The Postman Always Rings Twice", but the work the Richard Landau/Guy Elmes screenplay most closely resembles is the 1952 novel, "High Wray", by Ken Hughes, which Hughes himself filmed in 1954. The basic plot is virtually identical. Unfortunately, Tony Wright makes a very poor fist of the central role (well played by Alex Nicol in the Hughes version), while Frederick Valk is so distressingly hammy and super-boring as the husband, all our interest shifts to the super-glamorous siren, so enticingly enacted by Barbara Payton (who certainly gives Hillary Brooke a run for her money). Sid James, who was so brilliant as the husband in the Hughes version, in this one has the Peter Illing role, which he plays with lackluster enthusiasm. Alas, the wife has no other suitor here but the stolid-as-a-stalagmite hero, so the Paul Carpenter role was turned into a boring and totally extraneous pal of the Illing character, here portrayed with tedious vitality by John Slater. And to top it off, instead of an astute, charismatic police inspector played by Alan Wheatley, we are now regaled with dull old George Woodbridge. Needless to say, aside from his loving close-ups of Barbara Payton, Reginald Le Borg's tired, static, stolidly routine, barely competent direction isn't a patch on the grippingly stylish, atmospheric effects so brilliantly achieved on much the same budget by Ken Hughes.

Johnny Flanagan is young fighter from the streets of Liverpool discovered by middle aged fight manager Giuseppi Vecchi. Vecchi has a young sexy gold digging blonde wife named Lorna who sets her sights on the handsome young Johnny. At first Johnny rejects her advances, but Johnny soon falls in love with her. Lorna tricks Johnny into thinking she is carrying Johnny's baby so she can convince him to knock off Giuseppie, which he reluctantly does. However, Giuseppi's brother, sister and mother arrive from Italy for the funeral. Giuseppi's mother, who resembles Marty Feldman in drag endowed with the evil eye, suspects Lorna is up to no good and tells Johnny Lorna is lying about being pregnant. She tells Lorna fate will catch up with her, and that it does.If all this sounds familiar, it should. THE FLANAGAN BOY (aka BAD BLONDE) is a reworking of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE with elements of a boxing drama inserted. The performances are okay, with Sidney James giving a performance that is much more than that. Overall, not a bad reworking of a familiar theme, but nothing special either.