Some things I liked some I did not.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The movie starts out with 3 young thugs obviously bent on killing someone.And they do. Much of the movie revolves around whether or not this was 1st degree murder. What else could it be? The only thing missing was a letter to the victim announcing what was going to happen. Regardless of motives,it was preplanned and executed. That's first degree. The supposed trial, which we are told first is a grand jury hearing,is as far from reality as one could imagine. Grand jury hearings are not trials, with defense lawyers and newspapers present, ending with a judge pronouncing sentences.It only decides if there is enough evidence to have a trial later. And to believe that a D.A. would scream at and impugn his own witnesses is pure hokum. Let's fact it, the whole film is pure Hollywood foolishness with all the requisite character types included (even a nasty D.A. running for governor sitting at the prosecution table.) By the way, it was Lancaster's father that changed his name not him. And to believe that a D.A. would continue on a case after getting beaten up by the defendant's friends? Really!Lancaster is excellent, but that's all the film has going for it.

As with all Frankenheimer/Lancaster productions, this is a taut story with first-rate acting. But the outlandish courtroom scenes really let it down.Lancaster's district attorney is more the defense than a prosecutor as he paints the boys as poor, misunderstood victims that society drove to stab the Hispanic blind boy. It would be safe to say that his days as a prosecutor would be over. In fact, there might even be disbarment procedures on the horizon.Frankenheimer should also have consulted with some attorneys to see what actually goes on during a trial. For example, the lab report clearing DePace would have been available to the defense as part of discovery, not something that would be sprung by the prosecutor during cross examination. Similarly, the judge arbitrarily changes DePace's charge from murder one to third degree assault during sentencing, after the jury has already come back with a verdict. Did the jury convict on murder or not? This film puts me in mind of the later Birdman of Alcatraz. This is another taut, well-acted F/L effort in which the life of killer Bob Stroud is completely fabricated to make him appear to be a misunderstood innocent beaten down by the prison system, rather than the conscious less sociopath he was in reality. They even went so far as to get the real bird man a special parole hearing. Fortunately, when asked what he would do if he got out, Stroud answered that he'd kill again because there were too many out there who needed killing. Oops, never mind.

Uggghhh! This movie was perhaps the worst "social commentary" film I have ever seen--much worse than the very, very preachy KNOCK ON ANY DOOR and incredibly embarrassing and completely unbelievable towards the end. It's really a shame, as the first 85% of the film was excellent--offering many different perspectives on how to prosecute young urban hoodlums. Some are pushing for restraint and a liberal approach to the "misunderstood youths" while others are pushing for the "thugs" to get the chair. This debate was worth exploring, though I must admit that at times, the film didn't take a middle ground. And, in a movie full of "black and white thinking", you are left without any real answers--just diatribe and propaganda.However, despite this unevenness, the last 15 minutes or so completely destroyed the film--making it 100% ridiculous and schmaltzy! Instead of pushing for the death penalty (which at least one of the accused CLEARLY deserved or at least 150 years in prison), the District Attorney, in mid-trial, begins campaigning for the Defense!!! And, he concludes by declaring that they are all victims of society and should not face 1st degree murder charges!!!!! If this REALLY happened, the D.A. would most likely be before a disciplinary committee or get sent to a sanitarium! Sure, Burt Lancaster was seeking "truth", but the only truth I saw was a completely one-sided bleeding- heart film that made me want to wretch. DON'T pretend to offer both sides and then conclude the movie with nothing but pure preachy propaganda!! To me, this made the film seem very dishonest and contrived. Avoid this movie and watch most any other courtroom drama!The saddest part of this film is that it was directed by John Frankenheimer. Around this same time period, he gave us some of the greatest films of the 60s (Seven Days in May, The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds). This, on the other hand, was just too cheap and poorly written--why did he agree to do this bad film?!

***SPOILERS*** 1961 motion picture loosely based on the notorious August 30,1959 Salvador Agron "Capeman killings" in New York City's Hells Kitchen. The movie has the racial backgrounds of victim and killer reversed which made the film a bit disingenuous to the movie going public back then in 1961, just two years after that terrible event. The killer Salvador Agron was Hispanic and his two teenage victims, Anthony Krezsinski and Robert Young, were white. Three members of the white Manhattan street gang The Thunderbirds cross into Spanish Harlem on the turf of the local Puerto Rican gang The Horsemen and zero in on young and sensitive harmonica playing Roberto Escalante, Jose Perez,knifing him to death. Caught minutes after the killing are the three gang members Reardon Di Pace & Aposto, John David Chandler Stanley Kristien & Neil Nephew. With the city D.A Daniel Cole, Edward Andrews, wanting a first degree murder conviction of the three teenage assailants, to give him a boost in the upcoming gubernatorial elections, he put's his best prosecutor on the case Asst. D.A Hank Bell, Burt Lancaster. With the three defendants claiming that they killed Roberto in self-defense their excuse falls apart like a house of cards when it's shown that he was totally blind and a threat to no one, much less themselves. It now starts to look like D.A Cole would get the first degree murder conviction that can send the three youths, all under 18, to the electric chair. Bell who at first had no idea who the three defendants were soon realized that one of the accused killers, Danny Di Pace, is the son of a woman Mrs. Mary Di Pace ,Shelly Winters,that he was in love with years before he got married to his present wife Karin, Dina Merrill. This made prosecuting Danny very difficult and painful for him.Slowly getting all the evidence in order and at the same time being attacked,far worse the his wife was earlier in the film, by gang members for doing his job Asst. D.A Bell finally gets to the bottom of the case. Bell finds out the real reason for Roberto's killing and it totally throws him off to what he's supposed to do in the case; get a verdict that would strap the three into the electric chair, regardless of their guilt or innocence, in order to further his boss' D.A Cole political career. A bit ahead of it's time "The Young Savages" goes into the mental mindset of the three accused killers of blind Roberto Escalante and comes up with some startling conclusions; all three were not in full control of themselves or in what they did so a first degree murder conviction was unable to be reached by the jury. Not that they got off Scot-free for their actions and Roborto himself was anything but the innocent bystander that he was made out to be by his friends family and the liberal newspapers.A cowardly bully with a deep inferiority complex who was the leader of the pack Arthur Reardon is given 20 to life. A mentally retarded and delusional Anthony "Batman" Aposto, who thinks that he's the Batman of comic book fame, ends up in an institution for the criminally insane until he's seen fit, by a battery of psychiatrists, to again become a member of society. It was Danny Di Pace who got off from getting heavy jail time, Danny got a year in Juvenile Hall, for just wanting to be a member of a street gang to have the family that he never knew but that involvement lead to Roberto Escalante losing his life.Hank Bell threw away whatever future he had in the New York State D.A's office by looking at the facts and perusing Justice instead of letting the three gang member fry for the sake of his, and D.A Cole's, future in state or national politics.