The Leather Boys [1963] [DVD]

This Ace Cafe classic features the legendary Rita Tushingham in a kitchen sink Rocker fantasy with an ambiguous ending. Pete (Dudley Sutton) is fond of the gorgeously cuddly Reggie (Colin Campbell), whose marriage to Rita Tushingham (Dot) hits the rocks.While it's a great film, the quality is questionable. Is this an unconverted Youtube file? Something went wrong and the DVD formatting has been squashed into about the size of a choc n' nut bar. This can be remedied minimally by changing screen settings, but the quality is still terrible unless you run it into a TV from the PC. The sound's ok and the film is worth seeing, but the visuals for some reason haven't been adjusted from small size.I don't recommend this 'official' DVD to people who want to see good quality films. While this is the only release available, I hope that there will be a better one in the future.

I'll add my voice to the torrent of /completely justified/ complaints about this shameful, unwatchable DVD transfer. It looks like it's been converted to 405 line television, sent to Sutton Coldfield and back then reconverted via VHS. Badly. Then displayed shrunk. Interesting enough film of its time otherwise, and of course it does co-star Dudley Sutton off of "Lovejoy."

If only one Biker film remained in the world, I would want it to be this one. The Ace cafe makes a perfect background to the realism of the film. Having said this there are a few faux pas in the film, such as the Ariel Arrow, racing a Triumph Bonneville and keeping up! Arrows were fast for a 250, but had no chance against a well set up Triumph. Rita Tushingham plays a newly wed who soon tires of her husband and with living with the in-laws. She leaves and he moves a mate in to share the double bed at Grandma's house. All this is innocent as the husband has no idea that his macho, Norton riding mate, is in fact a homosexual. Their freindship blossoms through ride outs and heart-to heart chats and he eventually decides to run away to sea with his friend, who is a merchant seaman. He bedazzles the naive young man with talk of foreign lands and dusky maidens, which leads them to a dockside pub to await a ship to sail on. While sitting in the pub waiting for his friend to come back with a passage to buenos Aires or a similar exotic destination, he is accosted by a group of gay sailors and is told that the only sailing that week would be to Newcastle, and that his friend is as gay as they are. Disheartend and angry the film closes with him walking away from the pub much less unworldly than he had been 20 minutes previously. Brilliant socio-sexual commentry on the pre-swinging sixties culture and a peek into the lifestyles of ordinary bikers as well. Well recommended.

I was looking forward to seeing this old Classic again......However, this has to be the poorest quality dvd transfer I've ever seen, bar NONE!!!!I cannot believe Amazon is still directly selling this!Please Amazon, take note of this and the previous reveues.Fellow customers, Avoid at All Costs!!!!

Lovely old film. Brought as a present for my mum. she really loved seeing it again after all these years.

Not a brilliant print of this 1960s film, but good to have in my library.

What a classic. I wish I had a girl like Rita on the back of my bike.

Watched this as a teenager it has the street in it where I was bought up.