Sorry, this movie sucks

Absolutely Fantastic

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Over the opening credits, three teenagers swagger into New York City's Spanish Harlem, with trouble on their minds. In broad daylight, they viciously stab to death a blind 15-year-old harmonica player. The perpetrators are revealed to be members of the "Thunderbirds", an Italian street gang. This victim was a member of the "Horsemen", a rival Puerto Rican gang. Due to the victim's blindness and young age, district attorney Edward Andrews (as Daniel "Dan" Cole) decides to seek the death penalty. He has an eye on the Governor's office. Tough guy prosecutor Burt Lancaster (as Hank Bell) is assigned the case...We learn Lancaster moved out of the poor neighborhood and married wealthy Vassar socialite Dina Merrill (as Karin), after dating pitifully sympathetic Shelley Winters (as Mary). Left behind, Ms. Winters raised impressionable blond Stanley Kristien (as Danny Di Pace), one of the knife-wielders. Rounding out the trio are seemingly psychotic John Davis Chandler (as Arthur Reardon) and illiterate head-banger Neil Nephew (as Anthony "Batman" Aposto). While investigating the murder, Mr. Lancaster begins to question the death penalty he is directed to pursue...Based on "A Matter of Conviction" by "Blackboard Jungle" novelist Evan Hunter, this film asks us to look at a handicapped Hispanic teenager's killers as individuals with problems of their own. That's quite daring. This is, of course, the first step in actually changing things and helping prevent violence. Director John Frankenheimer handles the task well. After your initial revulsion, you're with him. Going for a weird balance of realism and showiness, Mr. Frankenheimer introduces the killers with choreography. For the actual crime, he becomes aloof, shooting it through reflection while a young woman screams. Finally, we become intimate with the characters...While we're asked to understand the killers and contemplate their action, Frankenheimer does not dismiss their flaws. We see these more fully in two subsequent attacks. In a public swimming pool, young Rafael Lopez (as Jose) is terrorized while dozens of tightly-attired onlookers cavort. Frankenheimer may have gone overboard with the towel-swatting background twosome, but the foot in young Lopez' face is effective. The young actors play this scene admirably. There is also a nail-biting close-up attack on Ms. Merrill in an elevator. Her character is given an edginess Merrill rarely saw in her movie scripts, but the role isn't fully developed. Even less is gleamed from Ms. Winters, who mainly sits and emotes. The most obvious dramatic moment ("He's your son!") never happens and it all ends too easily.******* The Young Savages (5/24/61) John Frankenheimer ~ Burt Lancaster, Stanley Kristien, John Davis Chandler, Neil Nephew

The first of the five collaborations featuring the energetic acting and directing styles of Burt Lancaster and John Frankenheimer The Young Savages is a sincere if not altogether successful look at juvenile gangs and assimilation in the era of West Side Story. It doesn't reach the dizzying heights of the musical but it does effectively convey the plight of growing up in the inner cities and the pressures facing them.Three of The Horsemen in mid day brazenly walk onto Thunderbird turf and stab a blind boy. Immediately powers that be attempt to exploit the moment for political gain while the city braces for a gang war of retribution between rivals. Hank Bell (Lancaster) is assigned the case by his boss who very much wants to be the next governor. With calls for law and order they push for the death penalty but Bell who grew up in the neighborhood refuses to broad brush the trio and investigates further and what looked clear cut becomes murkier with each new discovery.The opening of Savages is a powerful montage of tension building as Frankenheimer's assassins move in on their intended target. In the aftermath the cold cynicism of the likes of Telly Savalas' homicide detective and Edward Andrews office seeking DA keeps things gritty and grounded in reality while Frankenheimer and cinematographer Lionel Lindon create some strong expressionistic canvases to illustrate the grinding poverty and despair of the slum. Things become unglued however in the court room scenes as Bell dealing with some identity guilt himself ( his real name is Bellini ) goes from prosecutor to defense lawyer for his ex- girlfriend's kid in one cross examination and it turns Savages into soap opera.Lancaster delivers his usual energized performance as a man conflicted by his past and present in his pursuit of the American Dream. Andrews and Savalas nail their roles but Dina Merrill and Shelly Winters as paramour metaphors come across remote and bland.The Young Savages is commendable for its calling to attention the bitter friction of inner city living, poverty, violence and bias giving ample time for the denizens of these the slums to voice their story. The courtroom scenes however do not do it justice and Savages ultimately executes itself.

During this period, many juvenile delinquent films were released following the Hollywood success of The Blackboard Jungle with Glenn Ford in 1955. The cycle continued into the sixties when the juvenile films often turned soft or zany, such as the beach films. The delinquency films returned to a more hardcore approach with the advent of the motorcycle films from the mid sixties to the early seventies. John Frankenheimer was a director to be reckoned with from the fifties through the mid sixties. In The Young Savages, his second feature film, Frankenheimer directs Burt Lancaster as a crusading assistant district attorney who later finds himself second-guessing himself when prosecuting three Italian gang members for stabbing a blind Puerto Rican boy to death. The role is beneath Lancaster, and it becomes one of his standard portrayals of an intense character in growing conflict with himself over ethical issues. His performance is good, but toward the end of the film in the courtroom scene, Lancaster's character seems to take an about face in relation to his position as a prosecutor and from his earlier get tough approach; as a result, his concluding courtroom speech rings hollow and makes him sound like a political mouthpiece for the screenwriter. The film also glosses over the ethical dilemma of Lancaster prosecuting the son of a former girlfriend.The icy Dina Merrill represents the book-learned liberal faction of society insulated from facing the social problems the establishment attempts to come down on. Shelley Winters is always good, this time as an Italian mother with a son she's disconnected from. Edward Andrews is good as Lancaster's amoral, political boss. Telly Savalas appears in only his second feature film as a rough and tumble police lieutenant, a precursor to his Kojack persona. Luis Arroyo, the one time pitcher from the Yankees at the time, is Zorro (the Puerto Rican gang leader). The Young Savages attempts to do too much in one film, depicting juvenile delinquency as a social problem with varied causes seemingly to be studied and understood. Also the four main characters of Lancaster, Merrill, Winters, and Andrews appear to symbolize the various factions of society with a vested interest in delinquency as an issue; of course a couple are misguided. Neither gang is depicted as all good or all bad. The gang members appear to be acting a bit exaggerated in the film, which may have seemed necessary for the film to make its point, but today the performances simultaneously seem dated, tame, and, in the case of John Davis Chandler, over-the-top. Frankenheimer's early films, as did his early television work, move quickly with tense, emotionally packed scenes. He was also innovative with camera angles and stop action close-ups. The Young Savages benefits immensely from on location shooting in East Harlem neighborhoods where Lancaster grew up himself. The screenplay is based on Evan Hunter's novel: A Matter Of Conviction, the title deliberately ambiguous perhaps. This is probably Frankenheimer's weakest film from his first decade of directing. *** of 4 stars.

This is one of those social conscience movies that were popular in the 50s and early 60s. This is not an especially good example of the genre. It follows prosecutor Burt Lancaster's investigation into a gang killing. The movie seems to be designed around a series of points the screenplay wants to make about the nature of slums and gangs and whether the death penalty is a good thing and that sort of thing, but it approaches all this in an unconvincing, mechanical manner. While the movie isn't all bad throughout, and seems vaguely interesting most of the way through, the trial at the end is so utterly absurd that it ruined what little momentum the movie had going. This is standard Hollywood law, in which Lancaster exhibits fairly incompetent prosecutorial behavior in his quest for "the truth." The movie is sincere and has good credentials, so it looks like it should be a good movie, but it really isn't.