The Young Savages

Production: United Artists. Director John Frankenheimer; Producer Pat Duggan; Screenplay Edward Anhalt, J.P. Miller; Camera Lionel Lindon; Editor Eda Warren; Music David Amram; Art Director Burr Smidt
Crew: (B&W) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1961. Running time: 103 MIN.
With: Burt Lancaster Dina Merrill Shelley Winters Edward Andrews Larry Gates Telly Savalas

The Young Savages is a kind of non-musical east side variation on West Side Story. It is a socio- logical cussword puzzle, a twisted riddle aimed at detection of the true motivation for juvenile crime, as set against the backdrop of New York's teeming East Harlem district in which neighborhood nationalities mobilize into youthful raiding parties at the drop of a psychotic frustration.

The Young Savages is a kind of non-musical east side variation on West Side Story. It is a socio- logical cussword puzzle, a twisted riddle aimed at detection of the true motivation for juvenile crime, as set against the backdrop of New York’s teeming East Harlem district in which neighborhood nationalities mobilize into youthful raiding parties at the drop of a psychotic frustration.

The picture is inventively, arrestingly directed by John Frankenheimer with the aid of cameraman Lionel Lindon. Together they have manipulated the lens to catch the wild fury of gang pavement warfare; twisting, tilting, pulling way back, zeroing in and composing to follow and frame the excitement.

But there is nothing Frankenheimer can do to make the yarn itself – concocted out of a novel by Evan Hunter, A Matter of Conviction – stand tall as screen fiction. The story is that of three Italian lads (of 15, 16 and 17) who murder a blind Puerto Rican boy of 15 who is regarded as a top warlord of a rival gang. The case for the prosecution is taken over by scrupulous d.a.’s asst Burt Lancaster whose search for truth and justice and familiarity with the law of the asphalt jungle (he grew up there) leads him to make a valiant courtroom stand on behalf of the boys he is supposed to be trying to convict.

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