Saturday 11 August 2012

the young savages (1961) - john frankenheimer (and the savage young beatles)







Three youths from Harlem stroll across to another gangs patch and stab to death a blind Puerto Rican boy.  Burt Lancaster (as Hank Bell) is on the case, and wants to convict the boys so they receive the electric chair.  However, different reasons and views as to what happened are presented, and Bell, as he was part of that culture when growing up, starts to have doubts.  The Young Savages is a pretty good film in my eyes (despite some of the acting) due to the twists and turns as it goes along, and the ending is mostly unexpected.  Lancaster's profile should be on Mount Rushmore, as he is such an iconic figure, but Stanley Kristien, the actor playing Danny diPace (one of the accused) was really strange looking, as his face looked as though it had been molded into a sneer by pouring wax on it.  Dina Merrill (Bell's wife) gave  a pretty poor performance, but Kojak himself (Telly Savalas, with some hair left) made his first appearance in a film (as Detective Gunderside).  Well worth anybody's money.


As an afterthought, The Savage Young Beatles (Hamburg 1961) is an old bootleg featuring The Beatles that was also featured on the front of the Anthology series.  Obviously the name would have been nicked from this film, but that's not important.  What is, is the fact l am such a nerd and l need to get out more, but with my sore chest and back........




toodle pip

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