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Youth Runs Wild

1944, Movie, NR, 67 mins

Youth Runs Wild: Review

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While the cat's away the mouse will play and so do bad little teenagers, as this film so obviously states. While their parents are either at war or working in the local defense plant, the working class kids in a small town go crazy. A boy gets run over by a car thief, while a runaway girl falls in with "a bad crowd." Fortunately a soldier, returning to civilian life after being wounded overseas, opens up a center for the kids to hang out in and helps the boys with job training. This turgid drama was one of the few nonhorror films produced by Val Lewton, creator of THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE. He had set out to create a socially important drama, but studio chiefs insisted on recutting the picture with some new scenes shot as well. The result was far from what Lewton intended, and he angrily demanded his name be removed from the film. This request was denied. The result was a string of cliches and stock situations with only occasional moments of spark. Ruth Clifton, a teenager from Moline, Illinois, who had helped create the Illinois Plan for Youth Guidance, was brought in to serve as technical adviser, another sign of the simplicity demanded by the studio. Look at the movie house in the mythical town portrayed: it's plastered with advertisements for other Lewton films. leave a comment
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