Bronco Bullfrog

Plot

The film follows the fortunes of a 17-year-old, Del (Del Walker) and his group of friends. As the film opens four youths (Del, Roy, Chris and Geoff) are seen breaking into a cafe in Stratford, East London, but they only get away with about ninepence and some cake, and it is clear that they are hardly master criminals. Back at their hut on waste ground they mention Jo (Sam Shepherd), known as 'Bronco Bullfrog' (for reasons which are never explained), who has just got out of Borstal.

Once Del and Roy (Chris and Geoff are hardly seen again in the film) meet Jo in a caff, they link up with him to carry out a bigger robbery. Meanwhile, Del meets Irene (Anne Gooding), a friend of a cousin of Chris', and they start a relationship, despite the disapproval of Irene's mother and Del's father. The remainder of the film follows Del and Irene as they attempt to escape their dead-end lives.

Production

The film was turned down by Bryan Forbes at EMI Films.

Princess Anne story

A 2010 Guardian article noted a story about Princess Anne connected with the film's release. In November 1970, a group of 200 members of the Beaumont Youth Club in Leyton jeered Princess Anne, with some throwing tomatoes, as she was going to see the London premiere of Three Sisters instead of Bronco Bullfrog. A week later, Princess Anne did go to see the latter at the Mile End ABC. Sam Shepherd claims that he was arrested by police for attempting to kiss the princess's hand.

Accolades

The film has been described as "Mod poetry" and a "masterpiece".

However, the film became obscure after its cinema run, and was only shown twice on television between 1969 and 2010. In the mid-1980s, the master negative was disposed in a rubbish skip, but was retrieved by an employee of a film laboratory who placed it in an archive.

Home Media

The film has been released in the BFI Flipside series dual format edition (DVD and Blu-ray), with other films (such as 1975's 'Seven Green Bottles', and Platts-Mills' 1968 film 'Everybody's an actor, Shakespeare said') as extras.

When submitted for home release, the film was originally given a 12 certificate in 2004 but this was changed to a 15 certificate in 2010. The change is believed to come from the appearance of the taboo word cunt in graffiti in a very brief clip that the censors could have missed originally.

A new HD version of the film opened the ninth East End Film Festival on 22 April 2010, prior to its re-release in summer 2010.