The Yellow Balloon – 1953 | 76 mins | Drama, Thriller | B&W

Plot Synopsis

J Lee Thompson directed and co-wrote this tense thriller with several intriguing plot twists, an authentic austere atmosphere and effective use of post-war London locations. The film regrettably gives little focus to the relationship between Andrew Ray and William Sylvester, whilst Kenneth More is prosaic as the boys father, it requires Kathleen Ryan’s shrewish mother to inject a degree of genuine distress and family crisis into proceedings. The Yellow Balloon was Britain’s second X-rated film.

Twelve-year old Frankie Palmer (Andrew Ray) snatches his best friends yellow balloon and the two are running through a bombed-out London building when his friend accidentally falls to his death. Len (William Sylvester), a petty thief, witnesses the accident and takes advantage of Frankie’s feelings of guilt to form a friendship with the young boy. Len blackmails the boy into stealing money from his parent’s house, and then involves him in a bigger crime, setting him up as a decoy in a pub robbery. The robbery is botched, and during an ensuing struggle Len murderers the pub landlord. The crook realises that Frankie knows enough to hang him for the murder, so he tries to silence Frankie by throwing him down the lift shaft of a bomb-damaged Underground station.. At the last moment Frankie realises he’s in danger and a hair-raising game of cat-and-mouse ensues along the perilous tube-station platform as trains speed by.