My Boys Are Good Boys

As one of the previous reviewers confessed this film had all the earmarks of a tax write-off which it was for producer and star Ralph Meeker. Meeker got old Hollywood names Ida Lupino, Lloyd Nolan and Bosley from Charlie's Angels David Doyle to join him in this project.

Meeker is an armored car guard and he has a son Sean Roche in a reform school. Roche and his buddies from a reform school execute a well thought out plan along with Roche's sister Kerry Lynn to rob Meeker's armored car on its rounds collecting coins. Unlike bills completely untraceable, that part was well thought out. So was the actual robbery. But the idea is to do it and get back before this juvenile penal institution does its head count as these places are wont to do.

Lloyd Nolan as the security investigator for the armored car company is the only one who doesn't just go through the motions. The rest act like they are waiting for paychecks to clear from Ralph Meeker. The rest of the cast it's like we're seeing an amateur theater group.

This was Ida Lupino's farewell acting job. Too bad she couldn't go out on something better.

Reform school resident Sean Thomas Roche (as Tommy Morton) receives a visit from father Ralph Meeker (as Bert Morton), who informs him schoolteacher mother Ida Lupino (as Bess Morton) is retiring. Clearly, Mr. Meeker and Mr. Roche have some "generation gap" difficulties; but, they pale in comparison with the love lost between the two men and Ms. Lupino. Lupino could care less about her delinquent son; instead, she enjoys tutoring pretty young Kerry Lynn (as Priscilla). Little do the adults know, but the "kids" are plotting…

This sometimes confusing, and seldom plausible, "misunderstood kids drama" has a few interesting attributes. Old pro Lloyd Nolan tries to sort out the plot; he contributes greatly to an interesting cast. Prrforming admirably, Mr. Nolan makes everyone sharing his screen time look better. David Doyle, waiting for "Charlie's Angels" to resume, has quite a "My Boys Are Good Boys" backstory to tell. Notably, Lupino's shrewish characterization was her last film appearance, before retiring.

I had never heard of it before watching this seventies crime movie. A crime flick that looks like a fifties or late forties film, speaking of juvenile delinquency. Not the seventies genre, for sure. The story is very surprising, where a bunch of very young hoodlums pull a daring and clever armored truck heist, behaving like professionals. Very surprising. I did not expect so much. And seeing old movie actors like Oda Lupino and Lloyd Nolan is pretty weird and funny too. Yes, a very good little film which grabs you, despite the fact that you have only a few spectacular and exciting elements. But don't misunderstand me, that's not a masterpiece, just a smart little grade B picture. Music score all along the film is pretty entertaining too.

Hi, Everyone, Your boys might be good boys, but your movie's a bad movie. How did they fail with this one? The cast is made up of great veteran actors who can easily turn in a great performance. The title song is sung by Dorsey Burnette. Even Dorsey cannot make this title song sound good.

The story line is adequate. A few kids want to rob an armored car. What kid doesn't want to rob an armored car? No real violence to speak of here. Stupidity galore but little violence.

This movie unfolds more unevenly than a 29 cent taco. Ida Lupino is the loving wife who is not in love. A part she has played to perfection many times before. David Doyle (Am I the only one who confuses him with Tom Bosley?) overacts. Lloyd Nolan is excellent in his role but it does not save the movie. Ralph Meeker looks like he is being handed his pages of script just before each scene begins.

This cast could have spent the same amount of hours with a good director and a good script and they could have made a real winner. The last line in the movie is so ridiculous it almost made my smoke detector go off.

It is fun to watch this to check gas prices way back when.

Ida Lupino was better in High Sierra. Lloyd Nolan was better in Peyton Place. Ralph Meeker was better in The Dirty Dozen.

If you like Dorsey Burnette's voice, listen to Hey Little One or Tall Oak Tree.

Other than that it was OK.

Tom Willett

I would have rated this film with 1 star, but it got an additional 1 for Lloyd Nolan's brave performance as a security officer and an extra 1/2 for Ida Lupino as a shrewish wife, and an extra 1/2 for Ralph Meeker's role as a truculent drunk bad dad.

But the MUSIC! Oh my God. The music. The horrible synthesizer music bubbling away like little rodential heartbeats as we are supposed to feel fear, tension, drama, interest, or some other emotion which we cannot feel because the music is popping like popcorn farts! Oh, Lord have mercy. If you are the kind of person who can't take bad music, please, be cautious -- the sound track may damage your internal organs.

Also this film is a wasteland of bad late 1970s architecture, as it was filmed right before Post-Modern architecture saved us all from architectural cultural suicide. Just keep reciting your mantra, "Later on there would be good architecture. This was not the end of the world." Oh, and there's this insane fainting-gas stuff. The teens buy it at the local convenience store, no doubt. Another reviewer suggested the idea came from "Batman." I concur.

And i will offer a sparkly reward to anyone who can tell me the name of the book that Ida Lupino is reading on her bed when Ralph Meeker comes home after a long day in the armoured car industry. My TV was too small to zero in on it, but i have the feeling that if i could have read that title, i would have been rewarded by some sort of fabulous in-joke. Or maybe not.

Lloyd Nolan is okay. Ida Lupino is okay. Ralph Meeker is okay. The rest of this movie is insanely useless except to people who want to watch cars crash into one another over and over and over and over again.