Le mal d'être jeune

Amazingly a couple of the teens are teens brither wearing her bra? Quick throwaway line ex-football player dick clark as the actor==first time. One previous film played a DJ why suspend teacher??

"Because They're Young" is a movie that is worth seeing...much of it because it was Dick Clark's first chance to show his acting talents. This was his second movie appearance as an actor, but his first was playing a DJ...which is hardly a stretch from his job as the emcee on "American Bandstand"...a TV show featuring various hot musical acts of the day.

Clark plays Mr. Hendry, a new teacher at a local high school. His principal is a tough guy and expects his teachers to be disciplinarians first...though Clark thinks it's more important he understand the students instead of just labeling them as delinquents. Most of his kids seem like good kids, but he'll have trouble with Griff (Michael Callan)...a budding sociopath. What's next? Watch the movie.

This is a nice film though the story is occasionally uneven. As for Clark he's quite good and handsome...but he generally stuck to playing himself and never was a big movie star despite this performance.

By the way, if you're interested Duane Eddy and James Darren make appearances in the film as themselves.

At the time this movie came out, the generation emerging from the late Fifty's into the early Sixty's, didn't have any desires different than the previous generation. Since the turn of the 19th century parents became more and more lax or permissive you might say (for whatever reasons). The main difference, to me, was the way in which those teens behaved & expressed themselves. More and more, kids wanted to have fun but found that "Fun", doing different things. My formative years experienced dire warnings of "bad associations, trouble making rebels, leather jacket kids were no good, combing your hair with in a jelly roll style was for delinquents and so on." So I tended to be careful but respectful of others. "Because They're Young" was a successful attempt to capture the "atmosphere" the "Ambiance" of the era. Being Hollywood, over dramatization was and is not uncommon. Yet the sense of being "young" (after all these years) isn't a lost cause. It will always be very much alive and well. All it will ever really need is for older folks to empathize, sympathize and not forget that "Because They're Young" was them too, once upon a time.

Dick Clark strays too far from the Bandstand in this misguided youth flick, which is one-half benign high school opus and the other half a "Rebel Without a Cause"-type drama. Based on John Farris' novel "Harrison High", the plot has been reworked in schoolteacher Clark's favor, turning the teenagers of the piece into 'problems' this sensitive adult can solve. The newest teacher at a high school primarily home to the wealthier teen set gets involved with the principal's secretary while straightening out entangled young lives. Worse off seems to be Michael Callan as a working-class boy who doesn't fit in; his love-hate relationship with a touchy-feely butcher who wields a mean cleaver has to be seen to be believed! Tuesday Weld, suffering under the thumb of her harping, bed-ridden mother, is anxious to shed her trampy reputation, crossing paths with bad-boy Callan for the second time. Clark has problems of his own, nursing a wounded ego after a car accident has left him unable to play football--oh, and the wreck killed his brother and sister-in-law, too! The stilted dialogue throughout, courtesy screenwriter James Gunn, renders the teen conversations utterly false, while the only animated thing about Dick Clark is his eyebrows (and when he jiggles them around, his forehead becomes lined with curious criss-cross wrinkles). The film's third act becomes intentionally mired in juvenile delinquent melodramatics, with moody lighting and mad bongos on the soundtrack; however, since none of the characters have managed to elicit our sympathies, one is inclined not to care who makes out all right and who doesn't. *1/2 from ****

Another movie I'd love to see released on video/DVD that's been too long neglected is "BECAUSE THEY'RE YOUNG" (Columbia, 1960) starring Dick Clark of American Bandstand with Duane Eddy and his Rockin' Rebels, and Bobby Rydell on the soundtrack. Oh yes, that cool blonde hottie Tuesday Weld was in there too. Too bad it was in black & white, but they were doing a retake on "BLACKBOARD JUNGLE" (MGM, 1955) so it had to be, and look like a B-movie. I know I'm dating myself, but I did see this movie in the theaters when it was released in May-June 1960. It was the coolest, man. I mean like I really dug it the most, at age 13. I was into Edd 'Kookie' Byrnes' jive talk, rock'n'roll, and hip beatnik jazz so Maynard G. Krebs was my buddy on TV. And DIck Clark was a swingin' hipster on American Bandstand, WFIL-TV in Philly, broadcast on ABC-TV network nationwide. I watched it every afternoon after coming home from school, along with reruns of "Adventures of SUPERMAN", "Topper", and "Ramar of the Jungle"! Dick Clark really clicked for teens and kids in this movie, I remember everyone thought he did a great job with his first acting role. In retrospect, not having seen this movie since the early '70s when it was shown on TV one Saturday afternoon, I can't really judge it as an adult, but I fondly remember it being kind of a dark, melodramatic sort of "American Graffiti" movie experience. I would love to see it again after all these years! Please, Sony Pictures, put this one on your DVD-to-do list!!! I'd love to see an interview with Dick Clark about this movie. I wonder if he's up to that challenge now?

Because They're Young marked Dick Clark's dramatic big screen debut and while it didn't electrify the cinema world, he doesn't turn in a bad screen performance as the high school history teacher involved with his kids and with school secretary Victoria Shaw.

The plot of the film centers around a high school triangle with jock Warren Berlinger, cheerleader Tuesday Weld, and troubled youth and James Dean knockoff Michael Callan. Hints of the less than Ozzie and Harriet background of the three of them can be seen it brief vignettes of their troubled homes.

Clark's also having issues with principal William Genge who wants him to stick to teaching and leave the social work alone. Before Joe Clark was ever heard of, this principal has a once strike and you're out policy in the school. Dick Clark takes more of the Father Flannagan approach.

Two of the supporting cast, Doug McClure and Roberta Shore, would later be together on The Virginian television series. But that wouldn't be for another five years.

Look for a good performance also by Rudy Bond who's got a Fagin like role as the leader and fence of a juvenile heist gang in which Callan is a member.

Music by Duane Eddy, James Darren, and Bobby Rydell place the film firmly in 1960, the year of its release. The first two make guest appearances at a school dance. I know we didn't have names of that caliber at anything my high school ever ran back in those days.

It's not a bad film given the obviously low budget for it. It does have some nice noir touches and sincere performances by its cast.