Rag Doll [Young, Willing and Eager] *** (1961, Jess Conrad, Hermione Baddeley, Kenneth Griffith, Christina Gregg, Patrick Magee) – Classic Movie Review 10,807

The 1961 British B-movie crime film Rag Doll gained a new audience in the 2000s in response to Jess Conrad’s elevation to cult status as a pre-Beatles British icon, and is also notable for Christina Gregg as the young, willing and eager 17-year-old of the title.

The 1961 British B-movie crime film Rag Doll gained a new audience in the 2000s in response to Jess Conrad’s elevation to cult status as a pre-Beatles British icon. It is a noteworthy, entertaining example of early-60s British crime-film cinema with an engaging, noir-tinged story,

Director Lance Comfort’s 1961 romantic crime drama Rag Doll [Young, Willing and Eager] is an enjoyable minor nostalgic old black and white British filler thriller, mainly a vehicle for handsome Sixties pop star turned actor Jess Conrad (who spent most of the Seventies touring British theatres in the Andrew Lloyd Webber show Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) but also for Christina Gregg as the young, willing and eager 17-year-old ‘Rag Doll’ of the title.

It is only a humble B-movie of its time, just 67 minutes long, but it has its significant charms, especially its flavour of London night life and street life of the time and the performers. Conrad is certainly engaging in one of his first starring movie roles as good-hearted night club singing burglar Shane, who soon attracts the eye of Carol (Christina Gregg), the naïve teenage stepdaughter of an abusive alcoholic café-owner stepfather.

Café waitress Carol flees to London from her stepfather and an abusive customer in a friendly driver’s truck and is befriended by Princess Sophita, aka Auntie (Hermione Baddeley), a tough, middle-aged arcade fortune teller, who also works in one of four coffee bars owned by Mort Wilson (Kenneth Griffith), who becomes Carol’s protector. Then she hears Shane sing at Wilson’s club and falls in love with him, even though Mort and Auntie warn her that he is a crook. Mort is mortified, because he is in love with Carol. Everybody loves Carol. She’s so easy to love.

There is excellent work from those first-rate star character actors Hermione Baddeley, Kenneth Griffith as the seedy, middle-aged coffee bar/ nightclub owner Mort Wilson and Patrick Magee as the heroine’s creepy café-owner stepfather Flynn, while Frank Forsyth plays the police superintendent, with not much of a role in a couple of scenes.

Christina Gregg’s strong, sympathetic turn as the female lead and Jess Conrad’s charismatic, energetic performance as the singing crook Shane or actually Joe, are the main attractions. (Fourth-billed Gregg gets most of the film to herself, while top- billed Conrad doesn’t appear till 23 minutes in.) But they are easily out-acted by Hermione Baddeley as Auntie, whose protective character moves from initially mumsy to later lesbian leanings, and Kenneth Griffith, who is sensationally good as the sad but sincere Mort, helplessly stuck in his one-way love for Carol. It’s a shame Patrick Magee doesn’t have more screen time as the heroine’s sad-sack stepfather Flynn, just a few effective moments at the start.

The story is busy and flavoursome, and builds to a strongly melodramatic conclusion, maybe over-melodramatic, and the mood is quite gritty and noirish. And there is excellent black and white camerawork by Basil Emmott, with some nice, flavoursome vintage London location footage (notably the truck drive along Oxford Street with the Christmas lights and into town, and also many other street scenes). 

It is filmed at Walton Studios, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, but also on location in London’s West End, and its appealing nostalgia value includes Conrad coming out of the late great Astoria cinema in Charing Cross Road, where The Alamo is showing. This is also an important plot point. When Shane needs an alibi for a break-in, he gets tickets for him and Carol to see The Alamo. He makes Carol his alibi by nipping out during the film, breaking into Wilson’s house and stealing his bag of money, telling her to keep their ticket stubs.

 Well, that is the plan, and it of course doesn’t quite work out like that.

There is more nostalgia. Conrad sings, rather sweetly, ‘Why Am I Living’ with The Dave Clark Five as his back-up band. Jess Conrad recalled: ‘DIRECTOR TOLD ME TO TAKE MY SHIRT OFF FOR MY FANS IN A FILM I STARRED IN — RAG DOLL’.

Oh what a time it was!

Also in the cast are Patrick Jordan, Michael Wynne, Frank Forsyth, Linda Castle, Marie Devereux, Eve Eden, Leon Garcia, David Gregory, Frank Hawkins, and John Line.

Rag Doll was released in UK cinemas as a second-feature B-movie paired on the same cinema bill with John Paddy Carstairs’s A Weekend with Lulu, starring Bob Monkhouse and Charlie Drake.

Rag Doll [Young, Willing and Eager] is directed by Lance Comfort, runs 67 minutes, is made by Mancunian Film Corporation and Blakeley’s Films, is released by Butcher’s Film Distributors (1960) (UK) and Manson Distributing (1960) (US), is written by Brock Williams and Derry Quinn, from an original story by Brock Williams, is shot in black and white by Basil Emmott, is produced by Tom Blakeley, and is scored by Martin Slavin.

It had a Region 2 DVD release in 2009 in a double bill with Comfort’s 1962 film The Painted Smile, which also stars Kenneth Griffith.

The cast

The cast are Jess Conrad as Joe/ Shane, Hermione Baddeley as Auntie, Kenneth Griffith as Mort Wilson, Christina Gregg as Carol, Patrick Magee as Flynn, Patrick Jordan as Wills, Michael Wynne as Bellamy, Frank Forsyth as the Superintendent, Linda Castle, Marie Devereux, Eve Eden, Leon Garcia, David Gregory, Frank Hawkins, and John Line.

British actress and model Christina Gregg (born 1939) won the Miss ABC Television beauty contest, aged 17, She had a five year film career from 1959 to 1963. She also starred in Lance Comfort’s The Break (1963).

For ever young Jess Conrad (born Gerald Arthur James; 24 February 1936) turned 90 on 24 February 2026.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,807

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Jess Conrad: ‘DIRECTOR TOLD ME TO TAKE MY SHIRT OFF FOR MY FANS IN A FILM I STARRED IN — RAG DOLL’.