The Leather Boys (1964) Synopsis

Young Dot (Rita Tushingham) and her boyfriend Reggie (Colin Campbell) are members of a group of bikers who hang out at the Ace Café (a real North Circular location). They have a good time socialising and zooming up and down the road - real old fashioned "ton-up" kids. Dot wants to get married and Reggie thoughtlessly agrees, and the couple soon find themselves married.The honeymoon, at Butlin's (Bognor Regis), doesn't go well. The weather is atrocious, and while Dot wants to go drinking and dancing, Reggie would rather stay in and have sex. The couple are already drifting apart by the end of the honeymoon, and once home Dot proves an incompetent housewife who spends her time buying magazines and chocolate and having her hair done, while Reggie works and comes home to a dirty flat and beans for tea.Reggie finds solace with his biker mates and starts to form a close relationship with Pete (Dudley Sutton) who is a very happy-go-lucky character who works at the local tip and is of no fixed abode.The bickering at home becomes worse and worse, and the death of his grandfather leads Colin to want to move back to his grandmother's house to keep her company. Dot refuses to go with him and so Reggie leaves her in the flat. After a couple of days he decides to return to Dot and gives his room to Pete, but he immediately has a blazing row with his wife, and so he and Pete end up sharing the room. Bizarrely and harmlessly they share the bed, too, in scenes reminiscent of Morcambe and Wise.Dot tries to get Reggie back (by faking pregnancy), while Pete and Reggie head off to the seaside where Reggie wants to pick up a couple of "birds" although Pete seems strangely reluctant. On an impromptu motorcycle race to Edinburgh it looks as though Dot and Reggie might be able to achieve a reconciliation, but Reggie leaves her at the Ace cafe and goes off with Pete, and when he eventually goes round to the flat he finds her in bed with another of the bikers (an early sighting of Johnny Briggs).Pete, who has been a merchant seaman, has told Reggie that he can get them both on a ship to New York to make a new start, and now Reggie agrees to this and they go down to the docks. Pete goes off to look for a boat, leaving Reggie in a pub where he is approached by a pair of very obvious homosexuals. When Pete returns, the gays greet him like a long lost brother and it is impossible for Reggie not to acknowledge what has been obvious to the audience for some time - Pete is gay.In a touching final scene Reggie walks away leaving Pete hopeless on the pavement. Reggie has lost a shallow wife with no capacity for love, and a friend who loved him deeply, but too well. Is the name "Dodgy" blazoned on the back of Reggie's bomber jacket suggestive of an ambivalence in Reggie's make-up?

Young Dot (Rita Tushingham) and her boyfriend Reggie (Colin Campbell) are members of a group of bikers who hang out at the Ace Café (a real North Circular location). They have a good time socialising and zooming up and down the road - real old fashioned "ton-up" kids. Dot wants to get married and Reggie thoughtlessly agrees, and the couple soon find themselves married.The honeymoon, at Butlin's (Bognor Regis), doesn't go well. The weather is atrocious, and while Dot wants to go drinking and dancing, Reggie would rather stay in and have sex. The couple are already drifting apart by the end of the honeymoon, and once home Dot proves an incompetent housewife who spends her time buying magazines and chocolate and having her hair done, while Reggie works and comes home to a dirty flat and beans for tea.Reggie finds solace with his biker mates and starts to form a close relationship with Pete (Dudley Sutton) who is a very happy-go-lucky character who works at the local tip and is of no fixed abode.The bickering at home becomes worse and worse, and the death of his grandfather leads Colin to want to move back to his grandmother's house to keep her company. Dot refuses to go with him and so Reggie leaves her in the flat. After a couple of days he decides to return to Dot and gives his room to Pete, but he immediately has a blazing row with his wife, and so he and Pete end up sharing the room. Bizarrely and harmlessly they share the bed, too, in scenes reminiscent of Morcambe and Wise.Dot tries to get Reggie back (by faking pregnancy), while Pete and Reggie head off to the seaside where Reggie wants to pick up a couple of "birds" although Pete seems strangely reluctant. On an impromptu motorcycle race to Edinburgh it looks as though Dot and Reggie might be able to achieve a reconciliation, but Reggie leaves her at the Ace cafe and goes off with Pete, and when he eventually goes round to the flat he finds her in bed with another of the bikers (an early sighting of Johnny Briggs).Pete, who has been a merchant seaman, has told Reggie that he can get them both on a ship to New York to make a new start, and now Reggie agrees to this and they go down to the docks. Pete goes off to look for a boat, leaving Reggie in a pub where he is approached by a pair of very obvious homosexuals. When Pete returns, the gays greet him like a long lost brother and it is impossible for Reggie not to acknowledge what has been obvious to the audience for some time - Pete is gay.In a touching final scene Reggie walks away leaving Pete hopeless on the pavement. Reggie has lost a shallow wife with no capacity for love, and a friend who loved him deeply, but too well. Is the name "Dodgy" blazoned on the back of Reggie's bomber jacket suggestive of an ambivalence in Reggie's make-up?

Published Time: 2021-06-09 19:41:49