Plot
Three teenagers from the Italian section of New York City's East Harlem, Danny diPace, Anthony Aposto and Arthur Reardon, are members of a street gang named the Thunderbirds. They have an ongoing turf war with a Puerto Rican gang, based in another section of East Harlem, called the Horsemen. As the movie begins, the three Thunderbirds unleash a knife attack on Roberto Escalante, a blind member of the Horsemen, stabbing him to death.
They are caught and arrested, and during questioning by the police, claiming that they were acting in self defense because Escalante attacked them with a knife. During their interrogation, the assistant district attorney assigned to the case, Hank Bell discovers one of the boys is the son of Mary diPace, an ex-girlfriend.
Bell tells the District Attorney, Dan Cole, about this past relationship and that he grew up in the same neighborhood as the Thunderbirds. But Cole, who plans to run for governor, is anxious to prosecute the three teens and refuses to take him off the case. It emerges that Bell had changed his name from Bellini because he wanted to conceal his background and where he grew up. Over the years, Bell had found this advantageous in pursuing his career and in the opportunity to marry Karin, who had attended Vassar and came from a higher social class.
At the funeral for Escalante, Bell is confronted by Escalante's mother, who demands that the three youths be put to death, and by Mary, who tells him that her son is innocent and had promised he would never join a gang. Bell then sets out to find the facts about the killing, meeting one by one with all the families and gang members involved.
Karin opposes the death penalty, but Cole is anxious to seek the maximum penalty to gain political advantage.
Member of the Thunderbirds intimidate Karin in the elevator of their home with switchblade knives, and Bell is attacked on subway train by a gang of teenagers. He is not certain whether it is the Thunderbirds or Horsemen. Subsequent to this he visits the warlord of the Thunderbirds, "Pretty Boy" Savarese, and warns him against targeting members of his family.
Savarese asserts the innocence of the boys, who he says killed Escalante in self defense, and says that the murdered boy was a member of the Horsemen and had aided the gang by concealing weapons used in gang attacks. During his investigation, Bell also learns that Aposto is mentally handicapped and that diPace had once intervened to save a Puerto Rican child from drowning by members of the Thunderbirds gang. These findings add to the ambiguity of the case.
When the trial concludes with different sentences for each boy, tailored to their individual natures, Escalante's mother asks Bell if justice had been served. He answers unhappily that a great many people bear responsibility for her son's death.
Reception
The film has a 44% "fresh" rating on the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregation site. [4]
Variety called the film "a kind of non-musical east side variation on West Side Story ," .and said that the film was "inventively, arrestingly directed by John Frankenheimer with the aid of cameraman Lionel Lindon," who "manipulated the lens to catch the wild fury of gang pavement warfare; twisting, tilting, pulling way back, zeroing in and composing to follow and frame the excitement." But Variety said Frankenheimer failed to make Hunter's novel "stand tall as screen fiction." [5]
Writing in The New York Times , film critic Bosley Crowther said the film, obviously inspired by recent headline-making youth gang violence, "soft-soaps" juvenile delinquency and "doesn't provide much valid drama or do much good." He criticized the script, which he said gave excessive emphasis to the personal conflicts of the Bell character, but he praised Lancaster's "vigorous" performance. He also singled out for praise Kristien, Arroyo and Chris Robinson, who played Savarese. [2]
Time magazine said the film was "excitingly photographed" and was "at its best when at its ugliest." such as the subway beating of Bell, "but the prosecutor's personal life keeps getting in the way." The magazine criticized Dina Merrill's performance as "having the animation of a damp Post Toasty" and also lambasted the direction by the "much touted TV director" Frankenheimer. [6]
Los Angeles Times critic Philip K. Scheuer praised the "tough, taut and tense" film, which he wrote "reveals an increasingly conscious effort to get at Causes―environment, heredity, the slums, public apathy, political expediency, the responsibility of society toward its young." Scheuer called the young performers "unforgettable standouts" and lauded the "brilliantly bravura cast." [7]
In her 1982 review compilation 5001 Nights at the Movies , Pauline Kael said of the film: "You're awfully conscious that the picture means to be hard-hitting; it sometimes succeeds, but a lot of it is just worthy." [3]
