VIOLENT PLAYGROUND

Original British 40 inch x 81 inch 3-Sheet Poster for the 1958 Basil Dearden Drama VIOLENT PLAYGROUND, with an original screenplay by James Kennaway and starring Stanley Baker, Anne Heywood, David McCallum, Peter Cushing, John Slater, Clifford Evans, Moultrie Kelsall, Tsai Chin, Stratford Johns, Sean Lynch, Freddie Starr and Melvin Hayes.

James Kennaway’s script was inspired by an actual experiment that was carried out in Liverpool in 1949. There, a small number of policemen were rebranded Juvenile Liaison Officers and given specific responsibilities to familiarise themselves with local youth crime from the incidents themselves down to the root causes. Stanley Baker is the hard-nosed detective reassigned to work with children and rises to the challenge, especially when he encounters the Murphy family, whose twins Mary and Patrick have been shoplifting, and whose older sister Cathie (Anne Haywood) becomes his co-star in a distracting romantic subplot.

But it’s their brother Johnny (David McCallum) who provides the most fuel for sociological thought. Clearly disturbed, and overly influenced by American teen-rebel role models and rock’n’roll, the climactic scene in which he holds a classroom of terrified pupils hostage at gunpoint uncomfortably anticipates such later incidents as the Dunblane (1995) and Columbine (1999) school massacres.

Printed by Electric (Modern) Printing Co. Ltd. Manchester 8

The poster, which is in 3 separate sheets, is in very good folded condition with slight creasing, one or two holes at the cross folds and minor cellotape marks.