I somehow wound up with a handful of disparate movies about teens who are not exactly model citizens on my DVR. I think the last of them is Bronco Bullfrog, a little-known British film.
This one was made in 1969, on location in an East London that no longer exists, something that made me think of the movie 10 Rillington Place where the row houses that made up that street were soon to be torn down as part of Notting Hill's urbn renewal. Anyhow, Del (Del Quant, although these are all non-professionals doing the acting) is a young man in this run-down part of London who is doing an apprenticeship to become a welder, which at least would pay the bills even if it's not an exciting life. He lives with his dad in a crappy block of flats, and wanders the streets half the time with his group of friends, engaging in petty crime from larceny to beating up unwanted people.
Somewhere along the way, Del meets Irene, a girl of 16 who has about a year or so more to go in school before she's expected to make some sort of decision of what she wants to do in life, which for a young woman like her is going to mean at best a secretarial job before she gets married. These are the working class people who were already being overlooked by society in favor of people who could be more "properly" educated along with a more vibrant population. Irene, for her part, lives with her mother, seemingly no father around. Neither Del's father nor Irene's mother seems all that enthusiastic about the prospect of the two dating.
Del and his friend group learn about the fate of a guy they know named Jo, nicknamed the titular Bronco Bullfrog for reasons that aren't really made clear and aren't important anyhow. He's been in "borstal", which as I understand it is a rough British equivalent to reform school. But he's finished his sentence and is about to be released despite that the fact that he hasn't reformed one bit. He's got some ideas about crimes to commit and wants to bring Del in on them. Del eventually introduces Irene to Jo, mostly because the young couple can't be alone together in either of their own flats. But this gets the two of them in trouble since Irene is underage.
Del has an uncle living outside of London, but the uncle informs Del that this isn't really a good place for him either, as the only work available is farm work, and Del would be better off sticking with the welding apprenticeship since that at least is rather more lucrative work. And there's still the specter of the police nicking Del because of the relationshp with an underage girl even if she's clearly consenting and nowadays this likely wouldn't be seen as statutory rape under the "Romeo and Juliet" exemptions.
Bronco Bullfrog was made on an extremely low budget, which is part of the reason why it's become nearly forgotten. To be honest, that low budget means it's not exactly a great movie as there's not a truly coherent story here. However, what it is quite good for is the look at a London that no longer exists. Like any number of other movies of the era such as the aforementioned 10 Rillington Place or the produce markets in Frenzy, there's a bit of a documentary nature in the cinematography that makes Bronco Bullfrog well worth watching.
When Bronco Bullfrog was originally released, there was what to me seems like a bit of a gimmick in treating these authentic teens as speaking an exotic accent of English that for some audiences might need subtitling. There were apparently some prints that didn't use subtitles. The one TCM ran did, although I didn't find the accent particularly impenetrable.
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