ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

kijii This movie was released the same year as West Side Story, At the beginning of this movie, one sees a gang of hoods swaggering down the street. One almost expects them to break out into song and dance like the Jets did in West Side Story. In fact, the beginning of this movie has MANY parallels to West Side Story—right down to the two NYC ethnic gangs fighting to protect their respective street turfs. One gang is Italian (but HERE they call themselves the Thunderbirds--rather than the Jets.) The other gang is Puerto Rican (but HERE they call themselves the Horseman—rather than the Sharks). These parallels are eerie and it almost seems like one movie is copying the other. However, at this point, the two movies diverge since The Young Savages is no musical, no modern retelling of 'Romeo and Juliet,' no love story. Furthermore, far from the self-satirizing done in 'Gee Officer Krupke,' The Young Savages DOES explore and probe factors such as the criminals' age, personal problems, ethnic background, and social surroundings to judge when and how 'crimes' should be judged and punished.The movie starts with the brutal gang killing of a blind Puerto Rican boy. The suspects are arrested as they flee the scene of the murder, but claim that the killing was done in self-defense. Hank Bell (Burt Lancaster) is the district attorney who prosecutes the case. His investigation takes him on a search that will teach as much about himself and HIS motives as it does with those of the suspects. First we learn that his wife, Karin (Diana Merrill), is a privileged WASP who is a critic of capital punishment; Hank is vengeful (which lead to tension with their marriage). As the prosecutor, Hank is basically working against the Italian gang (the suspects) and for the Puerto Ricans (the victims). BUT he, himself, is an Italian who had escaped (through education, marriage, and status) the same neighborhood where the suspects come from. In fact, he had formerly dated one of the suspect's mothers, Mary de Pace (Shelley Winters). The case that had looked like an open-and-shut capital murder, turn out to be more complicated than he had thought, as the fact about both side (suspects and victims) emerge.

JasparLamarCrabb A liberal's fantasy film though it tries mightily to pretend it isn't. Burt Lancaster is a NYC D.A. investigating the stabbing of a blind Puerto Rican boy in Spanish Harlem. The gang members who may or may not have been responsible include the son of Lancaster's childhood girlfriend. Director John Frankenheimer tries mightily to show both sides of the coin with this film, but in the end, cops out with what is tantamount to a "happy ending." This may have had more to do with the famously liberal Lancaster's leftist leanings than with Frankenheimer's filmmaking choices. Nevertheless there is some very good acting, not only by Lancaster, but by Shelley Winters, Vivian Nathan, Pilar Seurat (as the dead boy's sister) and Telly Savalas as Lancaster's highly cynical, Greek chorus associate. David Amram provided the inflammatory music score and Lionel Lindon did the shot on location cinematography.

blanche-2 Post-World War II, there was a rise in juvenile delinquency, and this was mirrored in films such as "Blackboard Jungle," "Rebel without a Cause," "High School Confidential," and "Knock on Any Door." Antiheroes like James Dean and Marlon Brando became popular, and sexual threats like Elvis Presley invaded music. To adults, the kids were out of control."The Young Savages" from 1961 is another film looking at the rise in delinquency, this one starring Burt Lancaster, Shelley Winters, Dina Merrill, and Telly Savalas (in his film debut). Directed by John Frankenheimer, the film is an attempt to get at the psychological reasons behind the murder of a Puerto Rican boy in Harlem.Lancaster plays DA Hank Bell aka Bellini before his father changed it. He grew up in the neighborhood depicted. Now there is an ethnic division, the Italians versus the Puerto Ricans, with gang activity on both sides - West Side Story sans music.Hank Bell is to prosecute the juveniles accused of the stabbing, and one of them is the son of a woman (Winters) whom he once dated. She tells him her son could not have been involved in any murder and begs him to look into it. In real life I think he would have had to give the case to someone else, but here, he tries to find out what really happened. Along the way, he learns some things about himself.Like "Knock on Any Door," "The Young Savages" endeavors to show what's behind the tragedy. Merrill is Karin, Hank's suburban life, with the liberal philosophy of one who doesn't actually deal with juveniles. She's a far cry from Hank's old girlfriend from the neighborhood - Hank has reinvented himself and has a debutante type for a wife. Partly from guilt, partly from "there but for the grace of God," Hank throws himself into the case, endeavoring to see both sides, to the complete annoyance of his superiors.Good movie with an intense performance by Lancaster. The film is notable also for being Telly Savalas' first film, playing a police detective with shades of Kojak. The juveniles - Stanley Kristien, Neil Nephew, Luis Arroyo, Jose Perez, and Richard Velez, are all excellent.Though somewhat derivative, this is a good film -- Burt Lancaster's production company was associated with quality films, and this is one of them.

Neil Doyle BURT LANCASTER takes a lot of physical and verbal abuse from NYC street hoodlums in another gritty version of hero vs. punks from the author of THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE. Blonde beauty DINA MERRILL is his wife whom he accuses of "graduating from Vassar with a degree in sarcasm". As the heroic D.A., Lancaster has the same uphill battle fighting for justice that Glenn Ford had as a schoolteacher in Evan's earlier work.But the problem is there are no new facets to the screenplay. It pretty much covers the same sort of material we've seen countless other times, with all of the incidents leading up to the courtroom climax being less than extraordinary. Some of the courtroom details are well done but overall the effect is more melodramatic than realistic.There are some serious flaws. The performances of the young toughs are often too exaggerated to emerge as truthful and undercut the realism. But Burt Lancaster anchors the story with one of his more restrained portrayals in a role that could easily have been overplayed.As persuasive as he is, he's working in a screenplay that is less than satisfying with regard to the scope and intent of the story. Unfortunately, the hoods come across too often as street tough caricatures and the courtroom conclusion is undercut by some hokey melodramatics.