The Young Runaways

In 1974, our vice-principal -- who was also our guidance counselor -- made us watch this film. We were in Grade 8, it was the last week of school before the summer holidays, and we were soon going to experience the frightening world of high school.

Needless to say, we were completely absorbed. Our vice-principal's attempt to scare us straight certainly worked. To this day, I have never stolen a car! Thanks, Richard Dreyfuss.

I enjoyed the film -- a 1968 scared-straight, after-school ditty with some ridiculous elements. But it also includes some really good songs -- songs that could've come from the pen of Love's Arthur Lee. I'm writing this today because Jim Weatherly -- who wrote those songs -- done died a few days ago. His best-known song is "Midnight Train to Georgia", recorded by Gladys Knight & the Pips, but the couple that are here are memorable, too. When I first saw this film about six or seven years ago on TCM and noticed the songs, I emailed Weatherly and we talked about the tunes. That wouldn't have happened with John Williams.

This is a less pretentious "Rebel Without a Cause". It is lighter, more pleasant and digestible. Coughlin shines, and he also wrote the charming title song, sung by the sadly forgotten Arthur Prysock. It is highly ironic, that whereas Dreyfuss was a bit player and Coughlin the lead, five years later, the roles were reversed on the memorable Gunsmoke episode "This Golden Land" where Coughlin plays a bit part and Dreyfuss gets a chance to shine. This film is preachy, but in a respectful and loving manner. And it has an artistic dimension.

Three young runaways find themselves in bohemian Chicago. Shelley Allen is tired of being sold to by her rich ad-man father Ray. She escapes from a creep driver and falls into the arms of prostitute Joanne Masters who is looking to turn her. Shelley escapes from Joanne and her Johns. She is saved by Dewey Norson who ran away for a mysterious reason. Deannie Donford is tired of her sexually repressed mother and father (Norman Fell). She moves in with musician Loch but then sleeps with his roommate Curly. A young Richard Dreyfuss has a supporting role. Meanwhile, the parents are searching for their kids.

This is a little transitional movie where the morality is mostly 50's but it's incorporating the 60's mostly as a cautionary tale. It doesn't give the parents a pass either. There is an attempt to bridge the gap. It's interesting to do the 60's in Chicago away from the cultural centers of NY and LA. It's also fun to see a young Dreyfuss doing his thing in one of his earliest film roles. The Deannie side of the story seems disconnected from the rest and could easily be cut. Mostly, this plays like a scared-straight movie.

The Metro Goldwyn Mayer studio was by the late 1960s in serious decline due to a number of factors, so much so that they eventually started to experiment with product that just a decade or so earlier they never would have touched. "The Young Runaways" was one of those experiments, an attempt to tap into the growing youth market. But I'm sure that any youths back then that saw this movie probably found it somewhat unbelievable and unrelatable. The movie plays out in an extremely dated way even by 1968 standards. It doesn't understand that most youth runaways were fleeing households that were truly abusive and unlivable - the problems facing the youth runaways in this movie seem really insignificant. And the lives of youth runaways in this movie seem really cushy compared to the hellish life youth runaways typically have on the street. All this is somewhat silly, but it isn't inspired enough to make the movie true unintentional comic gold. Most of the movie feels really bland and predictable instead. By the way, if you think that you might be getting the opportunity to see some serious exploitation due to the fact that the movie got an "R" rating in 1968, be warned - by today's standards, the movie would (barely) get a "PG" rating, and could play on prime time network television without any edits at all.