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(1966) Gérard Zimmermann, Marise Maire, Eric Penet, Elliot Stein. This gritty Euro-JD movie is about two poor youths who meet in prison. After their release, one gets a job and goes straight. The other leaves his job, rejoins his old gang, steals a car, and eventually ends up back in the slammer. Both boys soon have girl trouble. Lots of social intrigue in this moody, black and white juvenile thriller. There are many great moments, one in particular involves the "new girl" who "takes a walk" with a pack of teenage boys. Then there's a long sequence at a local youth dance with all kinds of teenage intrigue going on--including a rumble! The mop-top rock group playing at the dance is over-dubbed during its first number or two, but then they break into a rock and roll tune that's obviously not dubbed but played live. What a GREAT garage band sound this group has! There's also a bizarre skinny-dipping scene with full frontal nudity in an indoor pool in the middle of the night. Weird. Then there's the film's climax which is really, really HEAVY. Wow... It's quite obvious that this wasn't just some JD quickie; some real thought went into the making of this film. Amazingly realistic, it deals with many of the social problems of the impoverished youth of the day in a very poignant way. A wonderful, jazz-like score complements many scenes. When we first viewed this film we weren't expecting anything on such a high level. Really cool. Nice script, nice photography. This was transferred from a partially adapted scope 16mm print, so you get some of the widescreen effect. Sub-titled in English. From 16mm.
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