Feels like it should be a TV play - some hoods in New York kill another hood. They're teens so it's West Side Story without songs, as someone commented. The story isn't involving. The hoods kill someone in the opening scene, so we know who did it so there's no mystery. Lancaster is a prosecutor, so he's just putting people in prison.
It's kind of interesting he's downtown and his wife Dina Merill is uptown. But nothing much is done with that - he should have slept with ex Shelley Winters, mother of one of the accused. That would've been drama. Or the mother of the dead kid. I kept waiting for Lancaster's daughter to be threatened. Didn't happen.
John Frankenheimer directs his backside off though. It's gloriously shot, well acted - Telly Savalas is in it, Shelley Winters. He didn't want Dina Merill but accepted her as a trade off to not have Paul Anka! Sydney Pollack was dialogue director and impressed Burt Lancaster so much the actor helped Pollack's career.
Frankenheimer wanted to make the best film he could. But it's just not interesting.
The gang members are irritating. Well acted but still stock types - cocky or secretly disabled.
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