Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Growing up in Brooklyn in the 50s people like the 4 guys who are our protagonists here were a common sight, they were the older generation by a half for someone born in 1947. The Lords Of Flatbush were Perry King, Sylvester Stallone, Henry Winkler and Paul Mace. Every high school had them, kids like these who populated The Blackboard Jungle. As you will note two of the four had some substantial careers on the big and small screens. For Henry Winkler this part was a dress rehearsal for Arthur Fonzarelli. And Rocky was in the distant future for Sylvester Stallone.Part of it in the 50s is that many thought there was no future as the threat of nuclear annihilation stood over us. So just go out and have a great old time because there will be no responsibilities for you to assume. That underlay a lot of the thinking then.There's no real plot in Lords Of Flatbush, it's a a character study of four knockabout guys who can't see a future beyond their good times. At least one of them does in the end, I will not say who.One really glaring fault was the scene at the drive-in movie. First of all From Here To Eternity was out five years earlier than 1958 when this film is supposed to take place. Secondly though there were no drive-ins in the Borough of Brooklyn, I can attest to that. In that same year I was introduced to the concept of the drive-in, but I had to go upstate to experience it.Susan Blakely also got her first notice in The Lords Of Flatbush. What she tells Perry King in the end if the message if any this film has.

"The Lord's of Flatbush is a moo oo vie, about how life was in the fi ii ifties" that I wanted to exalt the faux gang experience so that I could relive that glory. What happened was an exercise in truth-telling.Wayne P. was sort-of Chico and sort-of Stanley. There was Smiles, who was over 21 and bought the beer. Jake M. who had the strangely Pogrom-descended patois and orbited the group's periphery but sure got the girls' attention (How many nights did he sleep in a drier at the laundromat because his rabbinical dad kicked him out?) There would be Ben-Hur moments of waiting for the rumble with the Hopkins guys(Wall Rats)like the jocks on the football field, where switchblades flashed and zip-guns blazed.Wayne, Jake and others actually joined the navy. They wanted to get a better deal than the draft offered. The Wall Rats never showed, and a couple of guys got in a little fishing while they waited. One guy, Jon S.,moved to South Carolina and visited a year later with a deep drawl. Sure. A couple guys became junkies and died.I expected my era to be memorialized in Heston-like aplomb rather than the obscene burlesque of "Grease". So many guys had Lord's of Flatbush memories in jewel-encrusted boxes on the shelves of time. I was let down: These guys were bozos.Like us.And the real treasures are in the genuine moments of empathy and sincerity that were found in the rooftop pigeon coups of Flatbush or on the back steps of a suburban bowling alley at twilight in the summertime.This is the simple truth.

Okay, I was only eleven years old and very much a Fonzie fan, leather jacket and all...but stopped short of being an actual punk (Dad saw to that!)...so it was exciting to me to see this movie, with the guys wearing greasy hair and leather jackets and Chico riding a two-tone Harley Road King (I may be wrong there, but it's what I remember). I wondered why a suburban kid like me couldn't find some hard-edged friends to form our own gang like this. The word gang, of course, had a different meaning then.Seeing the film again years later, it is easy to see why it was no big hit, although it is enjoyable enough to sit through and marvel at the youth of the better-known actors (Stallone, Winkler and King), and the absolute "cheesy-ness" of the 50's-imposter soundtrack. The brawl with the football team seems so unnecessary; but that's what jealous young boys do...the "walkin' tough" among buddies is something I could relate to, strength and POWER in numbers. And Chico's relentless knocking at the chick's chastity belt and morality...yet another thing that is easy to relate to. But overall I see that it is not brilliantly acted and rather amateurish. That's okay, as there are some scenes that do stand out, such as Chico's realization that adulthood is every kid's dreaded inevitability but one needs not be limited by this approaching fear (his scene with Stanley on the roof); the jeweler's feeling mortified after Stanley's threat to write on his tombstone that he was so foolish as to sell his girl a sixteen-hundred-dollar diamond ring; Eddie's telling Butchie that his foolish pranks and immature friends are no place for a young man who is smart enough to be a collegiate (putting his "two cents" in).Butchie getting run over is just a reminder that no matter how tough a guy is, with and without his buddies, Life throws some unavoidable disasters your way and there's nothing you can do about it.Not a bad character study, especially in Stallone's character. My favorite scenes are of him cackling with his pals after he "allows" his girl and her friend to leave the diner ("Did I say you could go?....you can go."); and his throwing the rival gang member against the pool table, terrorizing him and dismissing him from the pool hall...and giggling, as if to say to the viewer that he looks like one bad dude but is in reality a gobble who uses his tough facade for just a little bit of fun!I bought the DVD for cheap and from time to time I like to enjoy this film, knowing to only take it for what it is, a harmless guilty pleasure.

Absolutely inane film dealing with a bunch of street hooligans who show their immaturity and lack of respect.The only good thing about this farce is that there is no violence.Perry King, who has gone on to become the king of television movies, plays Chico, riding around on his motorcycle and going nowhere quickly as is the case with this film.Talk of stereotyping. The film is demeaning to Italian-Americans. Annie and Frannie are the 2 prototypes for LaVerne and Shirley.Sylvester Stallone is gifted at playing hunks with IQ's around 2.The plot here is thin and the writing is even worse. The sound sounds like it is coming out of your local luncheonette.Topics such as teen pregnancy, fighting, unruly behavior in school, and the coming of age are poorly dealt with.Frannie wants to marry the Stallone character so they can watch American Bandstand together. The film suffers from a complete lack of maturity and should define itself as the coming of ignorance.