Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir Crime In The Street
DVD Review
Crime In The Streets, starring John Cassavetes, James Whitmore, Sal Mineo, 1956
There was a menace, a serious menace, in American society in the 1950s that threatened the whole way of life and concerned young and old rich and poor, no question. People seized up at the very mention of the idea and went screaming into some dreaded night at the thought. The “red scare” you say with all those secret agents in high places and low, working 24/7/365 for “Uncle Joe” and his commie empire? Well, maybe but this is not the right answer here. The gut-wrenching fear of every kid (and adult who worried about their kids) who had to hide under his or her desk in some weak-kneed and empty-headed attempt to fend off some coming atomic bomb blast? Close, but no cigar. No, the thing that drove terror into the hearts of every self-respecting and well-meaning citizen, and even those who were not, was the invasion of … the juvenile delinquent (JD). Yes, JDs, usually shiftless young men, teenagers really, from the lower depths. And their hanger-on girlfriends (although the girlfriends were not as feared, not nearly as feared for obviously 1950s male-dominated society reasons).
If you came from “the projects” as I did, or from the urban slums as portrayed in the film under review, Crime In The Streets, a classic of this mid-1950s genre then the social snubs (I am being kind here) from the upper crust as the immoral, illegal, and threatening male teenager with time on his hands, a chip on his shoulder and no dough and no way to make dough was a lot more pressing that some hyped-up red scare or silly atomic bomb explosion. And as the plot line unfolds here in the small back streets world those great world-shaking problems don’t even enter the horizon. Life close to the bone, angst-filled and alienation-flooded just swamped all other worldly considerations. Especially for wayward kids.
This film opens with a classic “rumble,” over turf naturally, between two rival street gangs. After that audience fright as a way to get the juices flowing the rest of the film is a study in whatever sociological notions were floating at the time to identify, descript, and put a Band-Aid on the JD problem.
Frank, sensitive but totally alienated Frank (played by a very young John Cassavetes), is trying to find his place in his small world of the slums but people won’t let him alone. Especially one old goat of a man (a bowler no less so you know his is nothing but a bad hombre to mess with) , who snitches to the coppers on one of Frank’s boys, and is set up to take the fall- the deep fall so Frankie can feel better about himself. Aided by two fellow gang members he decides to alleviate his bad feeling but a small off-hand murder of this guy right in the neighborhood. One of Frank’s confederates turns out to be Baby (played by Sal Mineo made famous as a JD movie character in Rebel Without A Cause) and another played by Mark Rydell who seems to be a pyscho (or at least seriously anti-social).
Enter one settlement house social worker (this was the uptown swells’, 1950s version, notion of how to get these JDs back into society and away from dangerous weapons) played by James Whitmore who keeps prodding on Frankie’s conscious and his “inner” suburban youth. Naturally since a central motif of all crime noirs, JDs or hardened criminals, is that crime doesn’t pay old Frankie is made in his own way and in his own time to see the light. And to take responsibility for his actions. I think based on this plot I would have preferred to be just another punk JD than go that route. So there.
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