A story of teenage tearing-away in 1950s America, The Young Stranger fails to make a serious, gripping narrative of the events that follow the somewhat innocuous pivotal moment when 16-year-old Harold "Hal" Ditmar (James MacArthur) punches a cinema manager. Adapted from a TV play and released two years after the benchmark for delinquency movies, Rebel Without a Cause, it has none of that film's raw urgency, seeming staid and inconsequential in comparison. The primary problem is that Hal makes an unconvincing hoodlum. His misdemeanour is less an act of rebellion... than a brief misunderstanding. Far from articulating the angst of a generation, his angry tirades against his parents (Kim Hunter and James Daly) and the police set him apart from his peers and feel more like the self-pitying whines of a privileged individual. This sensation is further exacerbated by the fact that all of his problems are swiftly resolved in an all-too-neat ending. Still, The Young Stranger is an interesting period piece, not least for an amusingly tame car chase from first-time feature director John Frankenheimer. --Paul Philpott [show more]
We will publish your review of The Young Stranger [1957] on DVD within a few days as long as it meets our guidelines.
None of your personal details will be passed on to any other third party.
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy
