The Young Savages is a 1961 crime drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by John Frankenheimer

John Frankenheimer

John Michael Frankenheimer was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action/suspense films...

, starring Burt Lancaster

Burt Lancaster

Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...

, and written by Edward Anhalt

Edward Anhalt

Edward Anhalt was a noted screenwriter, producer, and documentary film-maker. After working as a journalist and documentary filmmaker for Pathé and CBS-TV he teamed with his wife Edna Anhalt, née Richards, during World War II to write pulp fiction...

 from a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Evan Hunter

Evan Hunter

Evan Hunter was an American author and screenwriter. Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952...

.

The supporting cast includes Dina Merrill

Dina Merrill

-Early life:Merrill was born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton in New York City, New York, the only child of Post Cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and her second husband, Wall Street stockbroker Edward Francis Hutton...

, Shelley Winters

Shelley Winters

Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...

, and Edward Andrews

Edward Andrews

Edward Andrews was an American actor, one of the most recognizable character actors on television and films between the 1950s and the 1980s...

, and The Young Savages was the first film featuring Telly Savalas

Telly Savalas

Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...

, who plays a police detective, foreshadowing his later role as Kojak

Kojak

Kojak is an American television series starring Telly Savalas as the title character, bald New York City Police Department Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak. It aired from October 24, 1973, to March 18, 1978, on CBS. It took the time slot of the popular Cannon series, which was moved one hour earlier...

.

Synopsis

A district lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 investigates the racially charged case of two Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 teenagers (as well as an Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 teen) accused of the murder of a blind

Blindness

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...

 Puerto Rican

Puerto Rican people

A Puerto Rican is a person who was born in Puerto Rico.Puerto Ricans born and raised in the continental United States are also sometimes referred to as Puerto Ricans, although they were not born in Puerto Rico...

 boy. The film explores several different gang issues, such as race, poverty, and especially that of peer pressure

Peer pressure

Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is "formally" a member , or a social clique...

.

Cast

Burt Lancaster

Burt Lancaster

Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...

  ...
Hank Bell

Dina Merrill

Dina Merrill

-Early life:Merrill was born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton in New York City, New York, the only child of Post Cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and her second husband, Wall Street stockbroker Edward Francis Hutton...

  ...
Karin Bell

Edward Andrews

Edward Andrews

Edward Andrews was an American actor, one of the most recognizable character actors on television and films between the 1950s and the 1980s...

  ...
R. Daniel Cole

Vivian Nathan ...
Mrs. Escalante

Shelley Winters

Shelley Winters

Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...

  ...
Mary diPace

Larry Gates

Larry Gates

Larry Gates was an American actor probably best known for his role as H.B. Lewis on daytime's Guiding Light and as Doc Baugh in the film version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof...

...
Randolph

Telly Savalas

Telly Savalas

Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...

  ...
Detective Gunderson

Pilar Seurat

Pilar Seurat

Pilar Seurat was a Filipina-American film and television actress in the 1960s.-Life and career:Born as Rita Hernandez in Manila, Seurat began her Hollywood career as a dancer in Ken Murray's "Blackouts", the popular postwar variety show at the El Capitan Theatre...

  ...
Louisa Escalante

Jody Fair ...
Angela Rugiello

Roberta Shore

Roberta Shore

Roberta Jymme Schourop , better known as Roberta Shore, is an American actress and performer, most famous for her youthful television and movie roles in the 1950s and early 1960s....

  ...
Jenny Bell

Milton Selzer

Milton Selzer

Milton Selzer was an American stage, film, and television actor.-Early life:Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, Selzer and his family moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire where he was raised. After graduating from Portsmouth High School, he attended the University of New Hampshire before serving in World...

  ...
Dr. Walsh

Robert Burton

Robert Burton

Robert Burton may refer to:* Robert Burton , Master of University College, Oxford, England * Robert Burton , English scholar and vicar* Robert Burton, Sr. , printing industry executive...

  ...
Judge

David J. Stewart

David J. Stewart

David J. Stewart was an American Broadway, film, and television actor.Born Abe J. Siegel in Omaha, Nebraska, Stewart was known primarily as a New York stage actor...

  ...
Barton

Stanley Kristien ...
Danny diPace

John Davis Chandler

John Davis Chandler

John Davis Chandler was an American actor. He portrayed the gangster Vincent Coll in the sensationalized and factually inaccurate 1962 movie Mad Dog Coll. Chandler also appeared in several of Sam Peckinpah's Western films...

  ...
Arthur Reardon

Neil Nephew  ...
Anthony 'Batman' Aposto

Plot

Danny Di Pace, Arthur Reardon and Anthony "Batman" Aposto are members of a street gang named the Thunderbirds in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in East Harlem. They have a ongoing turf war with a Puerto Rican gang call the Horsemen. The three Thunderbirds unleash a knife attack on Roberto Escalante, a blind member of the Horsemen and stab him to death. They are caught and arrested, and during questioning by the police and an assistant district attorney, Hank Bell (Lancaster) 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

Edward Andrews

Edward Andrews was an American actor, one of the most recognizable character actors on television and films between the 1950s and the 1980s...

), 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 his father changed his name from Bellini to Bell because he was ashamed of his background and where he grew up.