PRETTY BOY FLOYD

John Ericson

PRETTY BOY FLOYD (1960). Director: Herbert J. Leder.

Charles Arthur Floyd (John Ericson) gets some bad breaks due to the poverty of the period, and winds up in jail. Now an ex-con, he has difficulty finding a job. He decides he might as well rob banks, and is always sure of giving some of his booty to his fellow Okies in need. But when he shoots a cop in cold blood, and is also suspected of being one of the hit men in a massacre in Kansas City in which both agents and crooks are murdered, the G-Men make him Public Enemy Number One. You can be certain that it won't end well for "Pretty Boy" Floyd.

Joan Harvey and John Ericson

Pretty Boy Floyd should have been a star-making part for John Ericson, who had already been seen to great advantage in such films as Rhapsody, where he was Elizabeth Taylor's leading man. Although Ericson gives an excellent performance in this, the movie is shoddy and cheap jack, poorly directed by Leder. Leder at least manages to get good performances across the board, with an unrecognizably young Barry Newman [Fatal Vision] scoring as Floyd's associate-in-crime, the fictional Al Riccardo. Joan Harvey is also fine as Lily, a married woman who becomes Floyd's gal pal, and Carl York makes an impression as Floyd's old buddy, Curly. Jason Evers (billed as Herb) plays a sheriff, Peter Falk is another gangster, and Al Lewis, "Ol' Grandpa" from The Munsters himself, certainly make his mark as a hoodlum who winds up begging for his life in front of fellow mobsters when he really screws up. Fabian played Floyd ten years later in A Bullet for Pretty Boy, which wasn't any better than this.

Verdict: Good lead performance in a disappointing gangster flick. **.