This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

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

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Les mistons" is a movie by famous French director Francois Truffaut that was made over 55 years ago back when he was still fairly young an in the early stages of his career. Same can be said about the actors as well. For Bernadette Lafont, it was the very first acting role, while Blain acted before already. I guess she was mostly cast because she was also Blain's girlfriend/wife the year this was made and it was the beginning of a prolific career. She garnered final acclaim for her role as Paulette 3 years ago before her death in 2013.This black-and-white film is a typical example of Truffaut's early work. Really little happens, even for a running time of only 17 minutes. Basically the narrator is grown up now and tells us about when he was a boy and he and his pals constantly kept getting on the nerves of a young couple. They do pranks etc., but as not unusual for Truffaut there is a dark twist at the end which probably made this childhood memory so precious to the narrator. I personally prefer "Antoine et Colette", but this one here is not a bad watch either. Nicely atmospheric and really elevated by the ending.

Francois Truffaut's pre-400 Blows toss-away is an understatedly entertaining little 18- minute film that takes a group of horny little boys and makes them a collective protagonist pursuing an older woman to play pranks on her, frustrated because they know that they could never have her for so many clear reasons. They antagonize her lovers and watch her simply be beautiful.This tongue-in-cheek little whatever shows Truffaut and short story writer Maurice Pons's characters hustling all the woods, the streets, on bridges, and even inside a rural arena, and the kids have an exceedingly realistic affection to them, as this is in fact what boys their age would do with no technology or attention span. They play-fire guns at each other and devise their practical jokes against the lovers.The object of affection is unbelievably attractive, and naturally so, and really that is all we truly know about her, as it's all any of these kids know about her. This short has the muted lack of direct involvement that Truffaut tends to have, and despite that there isn't enough time to get to know these kids or or their crush, it's enhanced to have the inscrutable, almost objectified feature in her character.

A group of boys adore a young lady who cycles around the area in loose skirts. Being too young to love her they decide to hate her and make her break up with her boyfriend. They follow her around and usually wind up watching the couple as they play tennis.An early short from Truffaut, this is a bittersweet tale that is less structured than experienced. The film is essentially about a group of boys who tease a young woman because they don't know any other way of expressing their lust for her. It is a little heavy on noise and action but it is still good at heart. I would have liked a little bit more in the way of character rather than the slightly pretentious (French!) dialogue that was delivered - it didn't do enough to help me inside the characters or their feelings, but I suppose I had enough to be able to work it out for myself.The film is visually quite stylish and reasonably well directed; although some of the shots will appear quite clichéd now (girl on bike etc) but it is still effective. If anything the lack of dialogue was made worse by the noisy shouting etc that dominated the film; I would have preferred it to be a bit more controlled as I found the noise grating and made it difficult to concentrate. The cast are mainly young children but the woman in the central role manages to appear alluring and `normal' at the same time.Overall, this film has meaning and is enjoyable and interesting, but it hurts itself in some regards. It is worth seeing if you have more than a passing interest in Truffaut but it is overlong for it's material, dragging some scenes too long and lacks a stronger narrative.

Truffaut's early short moved me as much as almost anything he filmed. It's hard to believe that so much insight and humanity was crammed into such an early short piece. It's very easy to see the path from this piece to The 400 Blows. Not to be missed.