The Yellow Balloon (film)

Andrew Ray Kenneth More Kathleen Ryan

The scene Londons east end. Whenyears old Frankie Palmer Andrew Ray loses the sixpence his father has given him to buy a large yellow balloon from a street seller that the boy has set his heart on, he sees that a friend of his, young Ronnie Williams Stephen Fenemore has already bought one and Frankie snatches it off him and runs off with it, with Ronnie in hot pursuit. Ronnie chases Frankie into a large, bombed out house and they are running about in the ruins when Ronnie slips and falls thirty feet to his death. Frankie scrambles down to help, but realises that there is nothing he can do. Hiding in the shadows and seeing it all, Len Turner William Sylvester, a criminal on the run and using the ruins as a hideout from the police, convinces Frankie that the police will arrest the boy and charge him with the murder of his friend for pushing him to his death and that they must both make their getaway. Although Frankie and Len agree it was an accident, Len is adamant that the police will not see it that way and Frankie goes off with him. Len blackmails Frankie into stealing money from his parents Kenneth More and Kathleen Ryan to help fund Lens escape and then uses the boy as a decoy in a pub robbery that goes horribly wrong when Len murders the publican. Realising that Frankie is the only witness to his crime, Len knows he must kill the boy, too. This develops into a terrifying hide and seek chase through a bombdamaged abandoned and highly perilous London Underground station with Len hot on the heels of Frankie, who is desperately trying to escape with his lifeA sort of cross between The Window 1948 and Hunted 1952 and equally as good, The Yellow Balloon was one of the first films to be passed with the then new Adults Only X certificate by the British Board of Film Censors, which barred anyone under the age ofyears from being allowed into a cinema to see the film. This was because the censor felt that the chase through the Underground station in the last reel

Source: Wikipedia