“After biker Reggie (Colin Campbell) and his hair-hopper girlfriend, Dot (Rita Tushingham), tie the knot, they head to a holiday camp for their honeymoon where things go sour in a flash. Yearning to escape the drudgery of his new married life, Reggie becomes fast friends with Pete (Dudley Sutton), a quick-talking fellow leather boy with whom he takes trips to the seaside, much to the chagrin of Dot, who struggles to make their house a home. When Reggie’s grandfather passes away unexpectedly, he asks Pete to join his grandmother (Gladys Henson) as a boarder and live-in companion in her spare room, where he also crashes after he and Dot have a row. Cohabitating with his new roommate, it soon becomes clear that Pete and Reggie have feelings for each other that go beyond mere friendship - feelings that neither of them may be willing or able to process.”
/ From Rocco T Thompson’s review of The Leather Boys for Slant website, 2021 /
Released on this day (8 March 1964): director Sidney J Furie’s gritty working-class British kitchen sink realist drama (and homoerotic biker classic) The Leather Boys (1964). (Tagline: “Three lives ripped savagely apart!”). Some scenes were filmed at London’s old-school transport café The Ace Café in Wembley; when I used to occasionally go to rockabilly gigs there years ago, it looked exactly the same. For the “leather jacket lover” crowd, Colin Campbell and Dudley Sutton (pictured) resemble escapees from Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963) in their biker gear – and the great Rita Tushingham absolutely slays as the petulant Dot! Coronation Street fans will recognise a young Johnny Briggs (aka Mike Baldwin) in the supporting cast.
