Ire in the I.R.T.

The Young Savages (Hecht; U.A.) is taken from Evan (The Blackboard Jungle) Hunter's novel, A Matter of Conviction, which chronicled some savage, real-life skirmishes in New York's teenage gang warfare. The film is at its best when at its ugliest--picturing punks prowling their tenement-glutted, garbage-strewn "turf" (territory), or an Italian gang stabbing a blind Puerto Rican boy to death, or the grim subway beating of Assistant D.A. Burt Lancaster, or the switchblade threats on his pretty wife. These scenes were excitingly photographed on location in Manhattan's juvenile jungle, but the plot is make-believe from the pasteboard jungle of Hollywood.

An earnest, persuasive type, Actor Lancaster is assigned to prosecute the murder of a Puerto Rican member of the Horseman Gang by three hoods from the Italian Thunderbirds, one of whom makes animal noises, wears a cape and calls himself Batman. But the prosecutor's personal life keeps getting in the way. He seeks the death penalty, but his wife, a Vassar liberal, played with the animation of a damp Post Toasty by Cereal Heiress Dina Merrill, is dead against capital punishment. Yet the D.A. (Edward Andrews) wants to rev the Thunderbirds right into the chair so that he can get the governorship (Hollywood has decided all voters are out for blood). One of the defendants turns out to be the son of a woman (Shelley Winters) whom Lancaster once loved. Then Lancaster tries to kill one of the punks who pummels him in the I.R.T., and begins to doubt his own motives. "The natural reaction of man is to get revenge, retribution -- an eye for an eye." he observes. "That's instinct, but is it right?" Much-touted TV Director John Frankenheimer too often insists on the audience's knowing that he is around; the stabbing, for example, is seen entirely in the reflection of the victim's "shades" (dark glasses). He persistently uses his camera to comment on the action, which may be disconcerting for actors who want the story told entirely through them, but at least he does it with authority.

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