| Bad Boy | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Kurt Neumann |
| Produced by | Paul Short |
| Cinematography | Karl Struss |
| Release date(s) | 22 February 1949 |
| Running time | 86 mn. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Bad Boy is a 1949 film starring Audie Murphy in his first leading role. It was directed by Kurt Neumann.
In the film, Murphy plays Danny Lester, a hardened juvenile delinquent sent away by a judge (Selena Royle) to a Variety Clubs Boys Ranch in Texas run by Marshall Brown (Lloyd Nolan) and his wife Maud (Jane Wyatt) where the couple reform teenage boys, dozens of whom live on the ranch. Most of the boys adapt to life at the ranch successfully, but Danny resists all efforts at socializing him and plots his escape with the aid of a partner in crime on the outside.
Despite having been a decorated combat veteran five years previously, Murphy convincingly played a youthful teenager in the film.
To the end of the film is appended producer Paul Short's acknowledgement thanking Variety Clubs International, "which has 8,000 members—representing 17,000 theatres and is operating 100 charitable institutions in 43 cities and has expended twenty-two million dollars benefitting [sic] five million underprivileged children."
The ranch scenes were not filmed on the actual Variety Clubs ranch in Texas that inspired the film, but instead in Thousand Oaks, California.