The Young Savages
Directed by	John Frankenheimer
Produced by	Harold Hecht
Written by	Evan Hunter (novel) Edward Anhalt
Starring	Burt Lancaster
Music by	David Amram
Cinematography	Lionel Lindon
Editing by	Eda Warren
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	1961
Running time	103 min.
Country	U.S.A.
Language	English / Italian / Spanish

The Young Savages is a 1961 crime drama film directed by John Frankenheimer, and screenplay written by Edward Anhalt. It was based on a novel by Evan Hunter

[edit] Synopsis

A district lawyer investigates the racially charged case of two Italian teenagers (as well as an Irish teen) accused of the murder of a blind Puerto Rican boy. The film explores several different gang issues, such as race, poverty, and especially that of peer pressure.

The film starred Burt Lancaster, Dina Merrill and Edward Andrews and was the first film of actor Telly Savalas who played a police officer.

[edit] Plot

Danny Di Pace, Arthur Reardon and Anthony "Batman" Aposto are members of a street gang named the Thunderbirds in New York City in Spanish Harlem. They have a ongoing turf war with a Puerto Rican gang call the Horseman. The three Thunderbirds unleash a knife attack on Roberto Escalante, a blind member of the Horseman and stab him to death. They are caught and arrested, and during questioning by the police and an assistant district attorney, Hank Bell (Lancaster), Bell discovers one of the boys is the son of an ex-girlfriend (Shelly Winters).

Back at the office of the district attorney Dan Cole (Edward Andrews), Bell admits he knows the mother of one of the suspects in the killing but despite objections, he is not taken off the case and admits that he in fact grew up in the same neighborhood. At the funeral for Roberto Escalante, he is confronted by his ex-lover and she tells him her son promised he would never join a gang. Bell then sets out to find out the true facts about the killing and admits that he changed his name from Bellini to Bell because he was ashamed of his background and where he grew up.

[edit] External links

• The Young Savages at the Internet Movie Database

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v • d • e Films directed by John Frankenheimer 1950s The Young Stranger (1957) 1960s The Young Savages (1961) · All Fall Down (1962) · Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)  · The Manchurian Candidate (1962) · Seven Days in May (1964) · The Train (1964) · Seconds (1966) · Grand Prix (1966) · The Fixer (1968) · The Extraordinary Seaman (1969) · The Gypsy Moths (1969) 1970s I Walk the Line (1970) · The Horsemen (1971) · The Iceman Cometh (1973) · Story of a Love Story (1973) · 99 and 44/100% Dead (1974)  · French Connection II (1975) · Black Sunday (1977)  · Prophecy (1979) 1980s The Challenge (1982) · The Holcroft Covenant (1985) · 52 Pick-up (1986) · Dead Bang (1989) 1990s The Fourth War (1990) · Year of the Gun (1991) The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) · Ronin (1998) 2000s Reindeer Games (2002)