CITY ACROSS THE RIVER (director/writer: Maxwell Shane; screenwriters: from Irving Shulman's book "The Amboy Dukes"/ Dennis Cooper; cinematographer: Maury Gertsman; editor: Ted J. Kent; cast: Peter Fernandez (Frank Cusack), Thelma Ritter (Mrs. Cusack), Stephen McNally (Stan Albert), Jeff Corey (Lieutenant Macon), Bert Conway (Mr. Hayes), Tony Curtis (Mitch), Richard Jaeckel (Bull), Sue England (Betty), Mickey Knox (Larry), Robert Osterloh (Mr. Bannon), Joshua Shelley (Crazy), Drew Pearson (Himself), Richard Benedict (Gaggsy Steens), Sharon McManus (Alice Cusack), Joe Turkel (Shimmy), Barbara Whiting (Annie Kane), Sara Berner (Selma), Al Ramsen (Benny), Luis Van Rooten (Joe Cusack), 1949)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
This is a much softened version of Irving Schulman's "The Amboy Dukes," a book about a rough gang of teenagers in the postwar period of Brooklyn. Drew Pearson narrates the opening of the film, despairing about slums as the cause of juvenile delinquency. He says it could happen in any city where such slum conditions prevail. The City Across the River refers to Brooklyn as being the inferior location to Manhattan, and those who live there look to Manhattan as a place to escape to and expand their horizons. Drew Pearson's serious voice gives this film a documentary look; and, when we see the gang in action, it is remindful of all those Dead End Kids' feature movies.
This is a tired, clichéd film, with its main selling point being all the location shots of the city, evoking a sense of urban nostalgia. Tony Curtis made his film debut, taking a small part as one of the Amboy Dukes. All the gang members are stock characters and the predictable story sheds little insight about juvenile delinquency, offering only a square look into the grimness of street life.
The film's protagonist, Frank Cusack (Fernandez), is a lifeless 16-year-old, who speaks his lines as if he were stepping on some Brillo pads. His problems are at home and in the slum environment he lives in. His parents are hard workers, but not able to scrape enough money to live better. His mother (Thelma Ritter) is a nag, always picking on her husband (Luis Van Rooten) to get tougher with Frank and make him stop hanging out with the gang. The younger sister (Sharon) is close with Frank and yearns for the day that she can escape from this neighborhood. Since Frank is a poor student in a vocational high school and can't stand living at home, he either hangs around a poolroom or with the Amboy Dukes.
The Dukes are hired by a local gangster Gaggy (Benedict) to work over a restaurant owner. The gangster is the brother of a community center counselor, Stan Albert (Stephen McNally), who tries to help the kids in the neighborhood not get into trouble. His main purpose in life is to make sure the neighborhood kids don't grow up to be like his brother. Frankie is someone he sees drifting into trouble and even though he goes out of his way to help him, he can't find a way to reach him.
The big event in the film is an accidental killing of Frankie's high school shop teacher (Osterloh), which causes Frankie to realize that he can never escape from his environment. The teacher is ironically shot by a zip gun made in his shop class by Frankie's fellow gang member Benny (Ramsen). The killing occurs as Frankie and Benny were struggling with the teacher, when they asked him to put in a good word with the principal so that their parents wouldn't have to miss a day of work to come to school for them because they led a class riot. The murder leads the two of them to become frightened teenagers, realizing that they are in big trouble and ruined their life by hanging out with a tough gang like the Amboy Dukes. Benny observes that Frank is not trustworthy when he watches him take away another gang member's date and cheat on his own girlfriend. The story line hinges on betrayal and lost dreams, as the boys are trapped in the slums they grew up in.
This film missed what teenage life was like in the city slums by a country mile, and instead threw together a cliché-ridden story, failing to penetrate the individual's inward tensions and the desolation of the neighborhood in a convincing way. The book was a popular, hard-hitting novel. This film lost everything about the novel that was essential, and the robotic acting didn't help. The only thing diverting about the film was some of the odd touches: the candystore lady insulting her customers while dispensing egg creams, and one of the Dukes called Crazy (Shelley), who is thinking about ordering ice cream mixed with French fries and potato salad, musing that it should taste good together, after all he likes all those foods separately.
REVIEWED ON 7/8/2000 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews