Rag Doll – 1958 | 67 mins | Drama, Crime | B&W

Plot Synopsis

B-movie melodrama from producer Tom Blakeley’s Mancunian Film Company and shot at Nettlefold by Lance Comfort. The story moves so swiftly it casts aside plot and character development. The film was a vehicle for would-be singing idol Jess Conrad and he contributes to the soundtrack, but his acting ability is painfully expressionless that even the presence of character actors Hermione Baddeley, Kenneth Griffith, Patrick Magee can’t save the day.

Seventeen year old Carol (Christina Gregg) works as a waitress in her drunken stepfather Flynn’s (Patrick Magee) roadside cafe on the Great North Road. When one night he allows a trucker to attempt to molest her, she storms out and hitches a lift to London. She arrives in Soho and is saved from the being detained by the police by fake medium Princess Sophita (Hermione Baddeley), better known as ‘Auntie’. Carol is also introduced to lecherous coffee bar owner Mort Wilson (Kenneth Griffith) who offers the naive teen a job.

Mort attempts to seduce Carol but she’s fallen in love with budding singer Joe (Jess Conrad), and when she falls pregnant the pair quickly marry. Carol had always remained ignorant as to why her unemployed husband was always moneyed, so when he staggers into their flat fatally wounded following a botched burglary, she discovers the truth. Together they go on the run in a stolen car.