I've been reading a book by Graham Hancock called "America Before". I think I've mentioned it; it's about the possibility (or probability) that North and South America were inhabited long before originally thought. It's a very interesting book, full of information about mound building cultures and the various earthworks that still exist in places like Ohio and Louisiana. But the reason I am bringing it up tonight is because I just finished reading about something called the Young Dryas Impact Hypothesis. Man, it's the mindblower to end all mindblowers. In brief, it is a theory that a comet fragment, roughly 15 to 60 kilometers in diameter (think of a rock the size of the San Fernando Valley) hit the Earth in North America somewhere near the polar ice cap. If the theory is true, it caused an extinction of all the large animals, i.e. megafauna, that roamed the continent at that time, and it also caused the extinction of the civilisation known as the Clovis culture. This is believed to have happened 12,800 years ago. I think it caused a break in the Ice Age, a warming period, due to the continent-wide firestorms that resulted - please don't dock me if I'm wrong about that, I was so blown away by the description of the event that my reading comprehension may have suffered momentarily, but at any rate I am writing about it for the very reason that it is an astounding theory I had not known about.
Yes, everyone has heard that a comet may have destroyed the dinosaurs. But that was 65 million years ago. The Young Dryas Impact was recent in comparison, and man oh man, you should Google it, or better yet, read Hancock's book. It's some positively Spooky Stuff. Have you ever heard of the Tunguska Event, which happened in Siberia in 1908? That was due to a suspected comet fragment also, though much smaller - only the size of a football field. The explosion was enough to have destroyed the city of London, had it happened there. We apparently orbit through an asteroid belt twice a year known as the Taurids. It is believed to be made up of pieces of a disintegrated comet, and while most of the material is dust, or pieces that are small enough to burn up in our atmosphere, there are other pieces that are big enough to cause an event like Tunguska............or Young Dryas.
Boy oh boy, I'm glad they never taught me this stuff in school. I'd have been a nervous wreck my entire life, lol. In truth, though, the Young Dryas theory has only been advanced in recent years. But it's based on solid evidence, and we are lucky that the odds are very much against a large comet fragment hitting us. It's the kind of thing that only happens every 50, 000 years. But when it does hit.....well, read Hancock's book, and now I'll shut up about the Young Dryas Impact. (Sheesh...).
Tonight's movie was called "The Young Savages" (1961), directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Burt Lancaster again. You know the pronunciation so I'll not trouble you with a repeat. This time Burt plays a New York District Attorney who is prosecuting a first degree murder case against three teenaged boys. They are gang members living in Harlem, and though they are caucasian they are also ethnic : two of the boys are of Italian heritage, the eldest, at 17, is Irish. He is the ringleader. Their ethnicity pits them against a rival gang of Puerto Rican kids. All are from poor backgrounds and dysfunctional families. Hell, that's a sanitised sociological term that hardly describes the conditions these youngsters had to deal with. Still, the gang members are murderers, we've seen them committing the act, against a young Puerto Rican boy who is blind.
Burt Lancaster has no sympathy for the white boys. He grew up in the same neighborhood. His Dad changed the family name from Bellini to Bell to escape the "Wop" tag. But Burt stayed straight and worked hard to get out of Harlem. Why can't these punks do the same? He isn't interested in their psychologies. He's gonna put 'em in The Chair.
Lancaster's wife is played by Dina Merrill. She is a Wasp he deliberately married to move into "White Society", but she is also a flaming liberal who graduated from Vassar and has no idea what it means to grow up around unrelenting violence. She is vociferously against the death penalty, and believes it is wrong for her husband to seek first-degree murder charges against the psychologically damaged teens. She tells him so, and he responds that she doesn't know what she's talking about. He grew up in the neighborhood, and as bad as it remains, the poverty and decrepit surroundings are no excuse to commit murder. Besides, he says, it's not about that - the murder happened because of a juvenile "turf war", and because one boy, Riordan the gang leader, is a vicious racist.
So there you basically have it. The plot hinges more on the question of fair justice in these circumstances, rather than on the boys' guilt, which is given. Lancaster's investigation leads him back into the old neighborhood, where he will interrogate gang members from both sides. He needs corroborating information from associates, because the other two boys won't testify against Riordan. As he learns more about the younger boys, Lancaster begins to partially modify his views. Before, he wanted all three to be convicted and given the death penalty, and I was not aware that a 16 year old was eligible for the Electric Chair in New York as late as 1961. That seems extreme to me, but then the murder in question was extremely viscious. However, Lancaster discovers that one of the younger boys is mentally challenged, and the other one - a 15 year old - may not in fact have participated. Complicating matters is that he is the son of Lancaster's former girlfriend (Shelly Winters), who never got out of Harlem.
This is kind of like "West Side Story" without the music or the romance. We meet the gang leaders of The Thunderbirds (Chris Robinson) and The Horsemen (Luis Arroyo). Both present themselves as stylish and jaded adults with a hardened facade, though they aren't out of their teens either. The acting by these young men is superb, as are the actors playing the killers : John Davis Chandler as Riordan, Stanley Kristien as Danny (the 15 year old), and Neil Burstyn as "Batman" the retarded boy. In a side note, he went on to become the husband of Ellen Burstyn.
The moral conundrums being debated here were hot button issues back in the 1950s and early 60s, when gangs and teenaged crime and angst in general were becoming epidemic in ghetto neighborhoods, and were gaining national attention for the first time. Nowdays, it's old hat. But the questions remain the same : what is to be done about it? How do we eradicate gangs? Through punishment, or alternative options? Now, we try everything, but in 1961, opinions were more polarised. Some folks indeed had no problem with a teenager going to the Electric Chair, and in fact the mother of the blind boy demands "eye-for-an-eye" justice from Lancaster, while failing to acknowledge that her son was less than an angel himself.
"The Young Savages" explores all sides of the issue, and for it's time must have been an insightful film. It's very well directed by Frankenheimer, who guides us through the mass of material with a steady hand, while also giving us a guided tour of Harlem street life in 1961.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Young Savages", photographed in glorious black and white with a jazz score to match the action. /////
That's all for today. Did you watch the Sondland testimony? He did so good I may have to remove him from the A-Hole List. Trump is Toast! See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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