****SPOILERS**** Making an outer-city or rural "Blackboard Jungle" there's Harrison High new history teacher Neil Hendry played by a very youthful looking-looking more like one of his students then a 31 year old teacher- Dick Clark getting involved with a number of his students off campus that almost gets him canned or fired from his job. Among those that Hendry takes an interest in is troubled student Griff Rimer,Michael Callan, who as we soon see has more troubles going for or against him then even Hendry can imagine.This all comes to a climax when Griff gets involved in a wear-house robbery with his mentor and father figure the local supermarket butcher Chris, Rudy Bond, and his fellow crook local gang banger Patcher, Chris Robinson, that goes wrong with Griff, the getaway driver, taking off in all the confusion. If that's not bad enough later Griff is confronted by another troubled student Buddy McCalla, Warren Berlinger, who's mad at him for taking his girl Anne Gregor, Tueadsy Weld, away from him despite his cave man tactics to win her back. As the two troubled youths have it out, in a wild fist fight, with each other in the school stairway.This leads both boys being suspended from school with added trouble on Griff's part in that the knife wielding Patcher is now after him for leaving him and his his friend Butcher Chris high and dry at the robbery site! ***SPOLIERS***Dick Clark's first dramatic role has him play more or less what he's in real life a role model to America's youth not in just showing them how to behave like adults but providing them with rock & roll music as well as entertainers live on stage. We get to see guitarist Duane Eddy and his Rebels as well as singer James Darren do their thing, sing and play music, live on stage halfway through the film. We also get to see that adults like Griff's mom and Butcher Chris are no better or even far worse then the troubled students in the movie. If fact their the very reason that most of the students have the serious troubles that they find themselves in and are suffering from!

At the time this movie came out, the generation emerging from the late Fifty's into the early Sixty's, didn't have any desires different than the previous generation. Since the turn of the 19th century parents became more and more lax or permissive you might say (for whatever reasons). The main difference, to me, was the way in which those teens behaved & expressed themselves. More and more, kids wanted to have fun but found that "Fun", doing different things. My formative years experienced dire warnings of "bad associations, trouble making rebels, leather jacket kids were no good, combing your hair with in a jelly roll style was for delinquents and so on." So I tended to be careful but respectful of others. "Because They're Young" was a successful attempt to capture the "atmosphere" the "Ambiance" of the era. Being Hollywood, over dramatization was and is not uncommon. Yet the sense of being "young" (after all these years) isn't a lost cause. It will always be very much alive and well. All it will ever really need is for older folks to empathize, sympathize and not forget that "Because They're Young" was them too, once upon a time.

Because They're Young marked Dick Clark's dramatic big screen debut and while it didn't electrify the cinema world, he doesn't turn in a bad screen performance as the high school history teacher involved with his kids and with school secretary Victoria Shaw.The plot of the film centers around a high school triangle with jock Warren Berlinger, cheerleader Tuesday Weld, and troubled youth and James Dean knockoff Michael Callan. Hints of the less than Ozzie and Harriet background of the three of them can be seen it brief vignettes of their troubled homes.Clark's also having issues with principal William Genge who wants him to stick to teaching and leave the social work alone. Before Joe Clark was ever heard of, this principal has a once strike and you're out policy in the school. Dick Clark takes more of the Father Flannagan approach.Two of the supporting cast, Doug McClure and Roberta Shore, would later be together on The Virginian television series. But that wouldn't be for another five years.Look for a good performance also by Rudy Bond who's got a Fagin like role as the leader and fence of a juvenile heist gang in which Callan is a member. Music by Duane Eddy, James Darren, and Bobby Rydell place the film firmly in 1960, the year of its release. The first two make guest appearances at a school dance. I know we didn't have names of that caliber at anything my high school ever ran back in those days.It's not a bad film given the obviously low budget for it. It does have some nice noir touches and sincere performances by its cast.

On his first teaching assignment, Dick Clark has a problem: He cares too much. That's not what we want, says his stern principle. Just teach your classes and send all the discipline problems to me. Not surprisingly, Clark can't stay uninvolved. Who would want it any other way?Clark is no seasoned pro in this film, but he's basically playing himself, or his public image, anyway, and he can do that well enough. He's there to try to straighten out all types of kids including the insecure newcomer (Warren Berlinger) and the incipient juvenile delinquent (Michael Callen.) This movie doesn't have anything close to the grit of 'Blackboard Jungle' or the lurid laughability of 'High School Confidential' but a big fan of the movies will likely find it worth the time. Admirers of Tuesday Weld will want to check her out, too. Victoria Shaw plays a school secretary who serves as a love interest for Clark.