Youth Runs Wild (1944)

User Rating:

4.2/10   

Director:

Mark Robson

Writers:

John Fante (story) and
Herbert Kline (story) ...

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

TIMELY! TRUTHFUL! (original ad under alternate title "Are These Our Children" - all caps)

Plot:

During WWII, adults are either off fighting or busy in the factories, so juvenile delinquency becomes a major problem back home...

Plot Keywords:

Home Front | Child | WWII | Jealousy | Hospital

Cast

Bonita Granville	...	Toddy
Kent Smith	...	Danny Coates
Jean Brooks	...	Mary Hauser Coates
Glen Vernon	...	Frank Hauser (as Glenn Vernon)
Vanessa Brown	...	Sarah Taylor (as Tessa Brind)
Ben Bard	...	Mr. Taylor
Mary Servoss	...	Mrs. Cora Hauser
Arthur Shields	...	Father killed by his son (scenes deleted)
Lawrence Tierney	...	Larry Duncan
Johnny Walsh	...	Herb Vigero
Rod Rodgers	...	Rocky
Elizabeth Russell	...	Mrs. Mabel Taylor

Runtime:

67 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #9767) | USA:TV-PG (TV rating)

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

The movie did poorly at the box office and lost $45,000.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows (2007)

Soundtrack:

I Get the Neck of the Chicken

Dutiful "warning" film for teens from, all of people, Val Lewton!

From producer Val Lewton comes this awkward, hardly bearable WWII mini-soap with teenagers at its center. Beginning with a rash of newspaper headlines exclaiming the downward spiral of the era's delinquent youth, Lewton and director Mark Robson focus on working-class teen sweethearts who live next door in a small town housing project: she's from a rowdy, low-class family yet is inexplicably wholesome, he's a straight arrow who gets into trouble with the law by trying to impress his girl. The unsympathetic nature of the girl's parents is very believable and well-portrayed, but the kids themselves and the other adults are poorly-cast and sketchily-written. There's some business at the beginning about an auto shop dealing in stolen goods, but it's as irrelevant as the salty chanteuse who gets the girl a job as a hostess. Reportedly a troubled production, with R.K.O. altering the finished product against Lewton's wishes (he considered at one point removing his name from the credits). It must be seen to be believed... *1/2 from ****