We've always had juvenile delinquents, but post-war, teenagers in and making trouble became great fodder for Hollywood. There were a rash of films about angry, mean teens: Rebel without a Cause, Blackboard Jungle, So Young, So Bad, High School Confidential, Blue Denim, etc., etc. Was it because kids' fathers didn't return from the war and their mothers had to work? Poverty? I'm not a sociologist, so I can't say. But JD became a big topic.This film, "Crime in the Streets," from 1956, is a low-budget, black and white movie about a bunch of mean kids in a bad neighborhood. The film's titular star was James Whitmore as a social worker running a community center. But "Crime in the Streets" "introduced" a mainly TV actor, John Cassavetes. He had had bit parts in a couple of films; this was his first main role. Don't ask me how he did it, but from 1956 until a Columbo episode in 1974, he didn't change a bit. The film also features Sal Mineo, future director Mark Rydell, Virginia Gregg, and Denise Alexander, who has appeared on General Hospital on and off for the past 38 years. Here's she's a teenager.The story focuses in on one family, the Danes, which includes Frankie (Cassavetes), his little brother Richie, and their mom (Gregg). Frankie is out of control, hanging out in the neighborhood with his buddies until all hours, refusing to get a job, and totally alienated from his mother. He's incredibly angry and at one point, he plans to kill a neighbor he hates and tries to get his friends to come along with him.This is pretty dreary stuff that looks like an old TV show, done on a sound stage. The acting is good, but neither Whitmore nor Cassavetes has that much to do to display their talent.Very ordinary, and not inspired. Directed by Don Siegel, who was capable of more.

This movie is one of a very popular genre in the 1950s--the angry and disaffected teen film. Some of them (such as "Rebel Without a Cause" and "The Blackboard Jungle") were very good. Some were downright awful (they made a bazillion B-films using this theme such as "Beatniks" and "Teenage Crime Wave"). Many, like "Crime in the Streets", fall in between. And, like most of these films, the 'teens' in this film are mostly actors in their twenties and even thirties, though a few (Sal Mineo) were actually teens.John Cassavetes plays the nominal leader of a gang of incredibly clean-cut looking punks. They begin the film with a rumble with a rival gang and terrorize the neighborhood. One of the neighbors (the familiar-faced Malcolm Atterbury) calls the police when he sees them in action, as Cassavetes takes it very personally--and plans on getting revenge. In the meantime, an incredibly earnest social worker (James Whitmore) comes on VERY strong and tries to point the guys in the right direction before it's too late. Will niceness or evil prevail? The biggest problem I had with this film wasn't the fault of any of the people who made this film. It was released as part of a DVD collection of film noir movies--and this is clearly NOT film noir. While there are a few qualities similar to noir, a teenage delinquent film with a crusading social worker sounds nothing like noir! Another problem, though minor, is that the film has been done too many times before and the writing is a bit too pat. It comes off as a bit fake as a result. BUT, the film still has something to offer--John Cassavetes strong performance. While never as famous as James Dean, Dennis Hopper or other actors who specialized in these sort of roles, I think he was better here than these more well-known actors. He IS the film and helps to make up for the writing deficiencies (particularly Whitmore's character who just comes on a bit too strong at times--though he did have some good scenes--especially towards the end). There are a few other nice performances in the film as well (such as Will Kuluva, Mark Rydell, Virginia Gregg and Atterbury)--and this help the film to rise above the mediocrity of most delinquent teen films. Not great but worth seeing simply for the acting.

**SPOILERS** After having a nighttime rumble by the docks with rival street gang the Dukes the butt kicking Hornets put them to flight and capture one of their gang members who they signal out for special treatment. Eariler in the week Hornet member Lenny the "Lip" was worked over by the Duke's when he entered their turf and got his nose broken for doing it. Now Lenny and his boys were going to do the same thing to the captured Duke street gang member.It was too bad for Lenny that concerned citizen Mr. Mcallister caught him in the act of pulling a zip-gun and reported Lenny to the police. With Lenny under arrest and facing at least a year behind bars for the violation of the NY State Sullivan Law, carrying a gun without a permit, the Hornets gang leader Frankie "Touchy" Dane is as mad as a hornet at Mr. Mcallister and plans to off him when the opportunity presents itself to him. Together with his two fellow gang members Angelo "Baby" Gioia and Lou "Crazy Louie" Macklin Frankie plans to do in Mr. Mcallister the very next evening when he comes home from his weekly bowling game. The trouble with Frankie's crackpot plan is that he has a habit of opening his big mouth in public and by doing that lets the cat out of the bag in what he together with Baby Angelo and Crazy Louie are planning to do! And this comes to the attention of neighborhood social worker Ben Wagner through Frankie's kid brother Richie who overheard his plan and wants to keep him from carrying it out. As well as, if he succeeds, prevent his big brother Frankie from ending up being strapped into Sing Sing's electric chair!Following the success of troubled teenage movies like "The Blackboard Jungle" and "Rebel Without a Cause" the previous year it was a given that they'll be followed with a film like "Crime in the Streets" that actually preceded, on TV, both of them. Even though he was a bit old, at age 27, to play an 18 year old John Cassavetes was very convincing as the misguided and troubled Frankie Dane. A person who hated being touched, even by his mother, but loved to touch, with brass knuckles tire irons and switchblades, those who get in his way. There's also the sensitive and confused Angelo Baby Giola played by 16 year old Sal Mineo. Baby is torn between his pop who owns the neighborhood malt shop & candy store, in him wanting Baby to make something of himself, and his membership in Frankie's gang the Hornets which is a one way ticket to the state penitentiary. Trying to please both his dad and Frankie cause Baby to suffer from deep guilt problems. But when it comes to do in Mr. Macllister the poor kid reaches his breaking point!***SPOILERS*** As for Crazy Louie, played by Mark Rydell, he's by far the craziest of the bunch in having no morals at all in murdering someone which even the not so stable Frankie, who planned Mr. Macllister's murder, later has second thought about! The real heroes in the movie is Frankie's kid brother Richie, Peter J. Votrian, and social worker Ben Wagner, James Whitmore, who in the end put Frankie straight in seeing that his hatred for the world at large, in putting him in the mess that he finds himself in, was more of his own making and one one else's! And it was Frankie and Frankie alone who by becoming a normal and sensitive person in him being able to feel the pain of others, instead of inflicting pain on them, that will help him overcome his very severe and dangerous inferiority complex!

I just saw this movie at the Don S. film festival at Film Forum, and this movie was surprisingly better than I could have expected. While it is a little preachy at times, the performances by Cassevetes and Mineo are mind-blowing in how touching and nuanced they are at such a young age.From the beginning it is clear that this film was made on a small set in Hollywood, but you quickly forget about this and can easily become wrapped up in the story - an almost reverse Crime and Punishment parable. Cassevetes and Mineo overcome an of the actors' deficiencies even though most of the other performances such as the mother, Mineo's father, are also superb (the only truly cornball performances come from the preachy social worker, the sappy little brother and a couple of the stereotyped gang members).The director does an amazing job of making this small slum world feel so small (the set is probably half a city block in size on the set) and tense.Film Forum displayed Scorcese's personal copy, which was unfortunately quite damaged. Hopefully, the studio which owns this film will reprint a clean 35 mm copy or print a restored DVD. For fans of the "youth gone wild" genre or simple of Cassevetes, this movie is a true waiting-to-be rediscovered gem