Los jóvenes renegados

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.

Terrible writing, directing, acting, music, and plot combined to form an unintentionally funny pile of garbage!

It's worth watching for laughs, but it's also full of notable actors and actresses. Isabel Sanford, Duck Sargent, Richard Dreyfuss, Brooke Bundt, Norman Fell, et al.

Horribly out of touch film attempting to draw young people back to the movies.

Even the theme song seems like a spoof of itself!

I don't know why they call this the YOUNG runaways.

Most of the actors are mid 20s to early 30s. Richard Dreyfus runs away at age 32. He's a draft dodger who speaks only in hippie lingo. Patty McCormick is lovely as a girl who meets the wrong guys. Brooke Bundy is always great to watch because she doesn't act, she just WHINES her way through every project. It is good the girls brought along their false eyelashes because jobs are scarce - except for "modeling." Brooke lost her suitcase and is taken in by two girls working as "models" willing to get her in the business. Uh oh. Entertaining. Dated. Moderate camp value. Watch for the always fabulous Isabel Stanford in a small role. Be careful out there people!

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.

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.