In an effort to make this the leading Herbert J. Leder online resource, today we take a look at "Pretty Boy Floyd", the only remaining title of his left unreviewed in the world of streaming. This dirty little period crime picture marks his directorial debut. Good or not so good, Leder's work is always fun to look at, even if this picture isn't quite the overstuffed, undercooked burrito of weirdness his other movie's are.
The picture starts off in that most traditional of mid twentieth century crime film settings: the boxing gym. In the locker room Floyd viciously beats the angry husband of a woman he is sleeping with. The camera holds Pretty Boy in close-up as he wails on the cuckold, all teeth gritting rage. John Ericson inhabits the character, an ex-con boxer who likes to steal men's wive's and bank's money, with a dangerous, handsome violence.
The boxing ring isn't where he wants to make a career, though. Floyd just wants to make an honest living as an oil field worker. When that career is cut short after his boss discovers his criminal past, Pretty Boy returns to his Oklahoma hometown. Upon arrival there, he is informed his father was shot dead, and that the man who committed the act still walks free. Broke and consumed with vengeance, he beats, then burns the man in a barn fire before setting off as a career as the "Sagebrush Robin Hood", dispensing stolen funds to Okie's in need.
Pretty Boy's partners throughout the picture are a character actor all-star team. Peter Falk plays Shorty Williams, with whom he commits the bank robbery that restarts his crime career. As the picture progresses, the violence escalates, the bodies begin to pile up and things start to spiral out of control. Eventually, Pretty Boy partners up with his old boxing pal, Al Riccardo, portrayed by Barry Newman of "Vanishing Point" fame. A psychotic crescendo to the bloodletting is reached when they team with Machine Gun Manny (Al Lewis of "The Munster's") to spring a prisoner who is being transported to the Missouri State Pen. The job goes bad when the men accidentally slaughter the man they are supposed to rescue, along with a whole bunch of cops.
The men who hired them for the job are unhappy and what follows is a trial scene within the Halls of Injustice. The three hoods stand before there "judges"- representatives from the world of organized crime-who decide the men's fate by kissing and passing a gun down the table at which they sit. It's a stark scene of indelible gangland mythology, and a classic bit of off-kilter Herbert J. Leder oddness.
The acting across the board is remarkably solid, especially for a low budget crime programmer. Al Lewis is particularly great, exuding a toothy aura of barely contained wildness. Ericson, tall and sharp angled, stalks through the picture like a pompadoured undertaker. He more than holds his own, even when he's on screen with Columbo, Grandpa Munster and Kowalski.
Leder was never more focused as a director than he is here. The cheap black and white combined with voice over narration gives the film a bold, tabloid feel. William Sanford and Del Sirino deliver a jazzy, driving score; the use of "modern" music in the context of a 1930s period piece adds a "cool" mood. It's the sole credit on both composer's IMDB page's, and a search of the web brought up no info on the men that I could find. If anyone out there knows the story behind these guy's, drop me a line!
With an ending that is a downright haunting bit of rural death poetry, Leder creates some moments of real cinematic strength within a film that should be completely disposable. "Pretty Boy Floyd" is a film that frequently overachieves. Filled with sex, murder and robbery, it's a nasty, low-budget id of a crime picture.
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