DVD Review: Early Frankenheimer feature shows his promise

Along with Olive Films and Cohen Media Group, Kino Lorber has been issuing relatively low-demand classics on Blu-ray (and DVD) in high-quality video but often with few (if any) supplements: the 1943 German “Titanic,” Mario Bava’s “Black Sunday,” Fritz Lang’s complete-as-possible “Metropolis” and dozens of others. (And if they could be bothered to respond to journalists’ emails, you’d know more about this.)

Among the most recent is John Frankenheimer’s 1961 “The Young Savages,” which is a late entry in the post-WW2 boom in non-escapist social realism. This was early in his big-screen career, after a distinguished run during the Golden Age of Television. (I can still remember his 1959 live TV version of “Turn of the Screw” scaring the living hell out of me.) With the exception of one theatrical release during his TV years, his first feature was 1961’s “The Young Savages,” with Burt Lancaster as tough-as-nails D.A. Hank Bell, who has hidden his actual name, Bellini, as a form of passing.

When he is avidly prosecuting a trio of gang members for murdering a blind boy, he discovers that one of them is the son of his ex-girlfriend (Shelley Winters, as one of the pathetic, beaten-down women she specialized in for years) from his street days. Could he be the boy’s father? Can he keep his lies from his super-WASP wife (Dina Merrill) even after — in a horrifying scene — she is threatened in an elevator by some of the gang?
Frankenheimer went on to make some of Lancaster’s best known films — “Birdman of Alcatraz,” “Seven Days in May,” and “The Train” — but his masterpiece from the period remains “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962). After a few more hits, he had a bad spell in the ’70s and only really came back late in life with “Ronin” (1998). “The Young Savages” still packs a punch, with all the leads at their best and a minor but unforgettable performance from the little known John Davis Chandler, fresh off his equally memorable debut in the title role of “Mad Dog Coll.”

The Young Savages (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray, $29.95; DVD, $19.95)
--

ANDY KLEIN is the film critic for Marquee. He can also be heard on “FilmWeek” on KPCC-FM (89.3).