The Big Night

Fuming after watching his bartender dad, whom he idolizes, willingly take a beating from a newspaper columnist named Judge, teen Georgie (John Barrymore Jr.) visits the store next door, hearing from a cop (Myron Healey), the uncredited shopkeeper and wife, also juggling a baby and a revolver, in director Joseph Losey’s The Big Night, 1951.

Joseph Losey directs John Barrymore Jr. as teen Georgie, at a prize-fight, who doesn’t realize he got conned out of the money he got for his father’s ticket, counseled by Cooper (Philip Bourneuf), who bought the ticket, aiming to chase columnist Judge (Howard St. John) who beat up the father earlier that night, in The Big Night, 1951.

Downtrodden from the opening frame, still-teenaged John Barrymore Jr. as Georgie, bullied then consoled by bartender Flanagan (Howland Chamberlin) and his dad, Preston Foster, in The Big Night, 1951, screenplay by director Joseph Losey and Stanley Ellin, from his novel, with uncredited contributions from Ring Lardner Jr. and Hugo Butler.