User Reviews

While the noir cycle sensed, in its oblique way, most of the tremors affecting America in the post-war years, one subject that remains conspicuous in its absence is juvenile delinquency. Though alienated youth cropped up now and again – in The Big Night, in Moonrise, in Talk About A Stranger and even, arguably, in The Window – they were viewed as individual cases, not as a social phenomenon. (It wasn't until the cycle had largely petered out that such films as The Blackboard Jungle and The Wild One emerged in the mid-1950s.)

One exception was City Across The River, based on Irving Shulman's novel The Amboy Dukes. Though noirish in its look and urban setting, it's probably safe to call it a social-message movie (as was Nicholas Ray's Knock On Any Door, of the same year). It takes us to the slums of Brooklyn at a time when slums were slums and when conventional wisdom held that the root of juvenile delinquency was the turn-of-the-century tenements themselves – the physical plant, not the inculturated attitudes that perpetuate the culture of poverty and crime.

Peter Fernandez plays the central character of the story, a teen-ager whose parents work holidays and double-shifts to make ends meet (his mom is Thelma Ritter). But he hangs around with members of a `club' called The Dukes (among them `Anthony' Curtis), whose older members seem to be rising lieutenants in the world of petty crime. Of course, in accordance with the official idiom of the times, the toughs caper and cavort like The Dead End Kids, and the worst epithet they hurl at one another is `you crumb.'

Fernandez and friend confront a shop teacher who's responsible for their suspension and accidentally kill him with one of the zip-guns that seem to be the main enterprise of the school's industrial-arts program. In fear and panic, they not only raise suspicion but burn most of their bridges behind them. The movie ends unsentimentally – even harshly.

The task of directing fell to the unlikely Maxwell Shane, whose most polished credits in the noir cycle are Fear in The Night and its remake Nightmare, oneiric cheapies that created a fantasy world. Yet he does surprisingly effective work in City Across the River, putting together a plausible neighborhood of vegetable peddlers, candy shops and pool halls. Despite the dated and bowdlerized street argot, the movie stays involving and humane without retreating into cliche (Fernandez' fall isn't assigned an easy scapegoat) or crocodile tears.

Irving Schulman's novel The Amboy Dukes was written and being read around the time I was born. For those of you who don't know, Amboy Street is a street in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn where the street gang the Dukes hang out.

It's almost kind of quaint, but sadly so in that these kids spend time in shop class making zip guns. Very soon all kinds of weaponry would be available for street gangs right down to today.

And how things have changed. Back then one aspired like Luis Van Rooten and Thelma Ritter to move to a place like Canarsie. Now no one aspires to move to Canarsie.

Van Rooten and Ritter are the parents of Peter Fernandez and Sharon McManus and Fernandez is a member of the Amboy Dukes. Social worker Stephen McNally has some hopes of reaching him. But when he and pal Al Ramsen shoot shop teacher Robert Osterloh with one of those make it yourself weapons they become beyond the reach of social workers. And detective Jeff Corey suspects them from the beginning.

Fernandez and Ramsen had brief careers, but other members of the Dukes did a lot better. Richard Jaeckel certainly had a career of note already and Mickey Knox probably would have, but for the blacklist. And Tony Curtis stands far out in front of all of them. It was clear he was going to be star, in fact the film would have been better had he been in the lead instead of Fernandez.

City Across The River is a somewhat quaint look at Brooklyn when I was only two years old. According to Tony Curtis's memoirs some establishing shots were done there, but the cast filmed in Hollywood. It's one of the first films to deal with post war juvenile delinquency, even before West Side Story. Dated, but it holds up well.

"City Across the River" is a film about a gang of young punks who are being pulled towards lives of crime by a two-bit hood, Gaggsy. At the same time, a do-gooder, Stan Albert (Stephen McNally), is trying to get through to them and point them towards becoming decent citizens. Of the young punks, the story centers mostly on Frank Cusack....and Frank and his pal end up getting in some very, very serious trouble!

During this era, there were a lot of exploitation films about 'youth gone wild', though I wouldn't place "City Across the River" in this category. It's not so much exploitation but more like a Dead End Kids movie combined with film noir. Overall, a decent picture...though the preachy prologue and epilogue was NOT necessary in the least.

By the way, if you watch the film look for young Tony Curtis and Richard Jaekel as two of the hoodlums in the gang.

Not only have I seen this movie but I also saw it being filmed -The location where it was shot was the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn NY - The picture was an adaptation of popular book of the time titled "The Amboy Dukes". Amboy Street was actually located in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. I guess the filmmakers didn't think Brownsville was seedy enough so they shot all exterior shots in Williamsburgh. Ironically my family lived in Brownsville before moving to Williamsburgh so you can see how the family fortunes were progressing. My mother had owned a candy store on Pennsylvania Ave. right across the street from Thomas Jefferson High School in Brownsville in the early 1940"s . The movie was shot around the corner from where I lived in Williamsburgh. I recall seeing some of the "gang" sitting in a small panel truck waiting for the set-up to be completed. Sitting there was Tony Curtis. I recall a crowd shot being filmed on Havemyer Street one night. The block was brightly lighted and I remember thinking that they needed an awful lot of light to film. When I actually saw the finished picture this scene was a day time sequence. What did I know. The film crew also placed a billboard on the building at the corner of South 2nd St. (where I lived) and Havemyer Street. "Happy Times Poolhall" it flashed. That billboard was still there months after filming but it reminded me of our brief connection with Hollywood every time I saw it. I sure would like to see this picture come out on DVD so I could constantly play it and see the "old neighborhood".

There was a boatload of talent in this film; but not from the leads or even supporting actors, except for the incomparable Thelma Ritter. Richard Jaekel went on to a fine career in many roles. But we find a little gem for Anthony Curtis, who is Tony Curtis, of course. He shows little of the promise of his fine later acting career. but certainly fits in Brooklyn. The film could without the corny commentary by the overblown newspaper icon. On its own merit and without voiceover, the film is good enough by itself. So stop making guns in shop, kids.

Thelma Ritter just breaks your heart in this movie. She plays the archetypical "long suffering mom", but when she talks to her husband, you feel like you're just watching a regular couple. You can feel the pain in her feet and the exhaustion creeping in from a long days' work. She and her husband, Luis Van Rooten, do everything so their kids can have a chance at a better life - but at the expense of their own happiness. They were young once and had dreams, but they were put on the shelf long ago.

City Across the River don't show how good kids turn bad; instead, it shows how bored kids get into trouble. It's a very powerful message, one that resonates through the decades and can touch kids who grew up in the 1950s, 1980s, or are struggling through today. Most of the adults in the movie are trying to help, but money, social status, and other factors don't result in a nice, sweet Andy Hardy type of youth. Stephen McNally is a well-meaning teacher who wants his students to care about their future. Jeff Corey is a cop, tired of arresting juvenile delinquents. The kids are played by unknown actors (including a pre-famous "Anthony" Curtis), and while the film isn't exactly polished, they bring realism to the message. Check it out if you like seeing hidden gems.

Dreary by-the-numbers juvenile delinquency with opening narration that sets the tone for sledgehammer righteousness. Peter Fernandez is never even remotely likable in the main role, and his cohorts are like overgrown Dead End Kids without the energy. The humour, such as it is, is provided by an over-acting Joshua Shelley who plays a knife-wielding member of the Dukes gang. Tony Curtis completists will be disappointed since he has so little to do. Thelma Ritter also has few lines as the over-worked, ever-suffering mother. The only thing that saves this from total turkeydom is the cinematography, by Maury Gertsman, which is noir-styled in on-location Brooklyn. Imagine a 90-minute episode of Dragnet with the thinnest characterisation for the police. When these twenty-something teenagers cry, you just want to give them a good slap and then lock them up for wasting precious movie time.

I lived in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, NY and saw "City Across the River" after reading "The Amboy Dukes" when I was 13 years old, a very impressionable age. Tony Curtis was the rage and all the boys started combing their hair with the "Curtis look." At the time it seemed as if all of my contemporaries read the book, much like "God's Little Acre." The former because it described our lives in Brooklyn and the latter because of the "sexual" passages contained therein. It was a time of pegged pants, "ducks-ass" hairdos ala Curtis, stick and punch ball, athletic clubs, going to the 12 cent movies Saturdays at 12 o'clock to see a double feature, cartoons, the "chapter" (weekly serial), not getting caught with your feet on the tops of seats in front by the omnipresent white dressed matron, street gangs, zip guns and our beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. Immediately after seeing the movie, "the neighborhood" boys, from ages 13 to 16, vicariously adopted the nicknames of the characters in the movie according to their own personalities. As I recall, names were Crazy Shack, Bull Benson, etc. One of the things that sticks in my mind was the way the neighborhood kids, in order to show their machismo as depicted in the movie, would gather on street corners and lift the metal bus stop stands as dumb bell weights, with one arm and then the other. It was a great time and television was only seen if you looked in the window of the bar and grill around the corner on Flatbush Avenue and Winthrop Street.

No matter how depressing this film appears to begin with, it's a great film and much ahead of its time. It's like a documentary probing the gang mentality of youngsters getting brought up to become good fellas and worse, and there are many aspects to the drama, one being that of the teachers, who really have a hard time and sometimes can't control their own classes. It's a social drama as well, Thelma Ritter has a poignant part as the worried mother, and Frankie's little sister has an important part also. Everything about the film is professional, and they are all convincing, from the poor people of the shabby back streets of Brooklyn to the policemen, the gangsters, and most striking of all is perhaps the character of "Crazy" whose real name is Theodore (Joshua Shelley), a fantastic clown with a penchant for cruelty. Tony Curtis has only a small minor part but is already Tony Curtis - it's like a hint at a prelude to his later great appearances. The final great dancing hall scene when things are getting really hot is a masterpiece in itself of polyphony bringing out all the true colours of the major actors including the leading gangster, fabulously contrasted against the fervent musicians and their frenzied music. Although I hesitated if I would see it through at all because of its dark depressive elements, I was finally deeply impressed - a great documentary film like all those "Naked City" films.

Sensitive study about the lives and loves of street gangs, their loyalties, and interactions with the police. Peter Fernandez is a bit too feckless as the protagonist, but all others are excellent in the supporting roles. Joshua Shelley and Tony Curtis are standouts. Worth watching

I can't remember exactly when I saw "City Across the River" but it was an awfully long time ago on television. But when "Saturday Night Fever" came out with its good guy-bad guy bands of friends who were sometimes dancing and sometimes raiding other gangs and it's last scene on the bridge, I thought, "This is a remake of 'City Across the River.'" We see the main characters of "City Across the River" as high students in a Brooklyn high school taking an industrial arts class. When they get a bit rowdy, the frustrated "shop" teacher yells, "I want it quiet!" One of the students sarcastically calls out in his Brooklyn accent, "Hey! Teach wants it quiet!" Another joins in, "Yeah! Teach wants it quiet!" Within a few seconds each in the entire classroom of students is banging on his shop project with a tool while chanting, "And a one and a two and a Teach wants it quiet. And a one and a two and a Teach wants it quiet!" as they march/dance in a circle around the shop tables. The high school principal arrives, demands the identity of the two ring leaders of this riot, and suspends them. Neither is to return without a parent. The two culprits approach the shop teacher after school and try to effect a reconciliation. "Come on. Gimme a break, would ya? My faddah's in jail and my muddah's gotta woik!" "Yeah, mine too. Give us a break, would ya?" When the shop teacher says it is out of his hands, the two students pull out a zip gun to threaten him. The zip gun goes off and Teach is dead. This is just one of a collection of problems Our Gang has as they are Staying Alive in Brooklyn. And the dance party hasn't even started yet.

First-Rate Casting and Believable Story along with an On-Location NYC Noir Setting Elevate.

One of the First Juvenile Delinquency Cautionary Tales from the Best-Selling Book "The Amboy Dukes" by Irving Shulman.

A Precursor to the JD Films of the 1950's that Saw Varying Renditions of Quality and Style.

The Fear of Violent Teen-Age Rebellion Swept the Country and was Mainly a Big-City Problem but was Propagandized as a National Scourge.

The Establishment Pointed Fingers, Unjustly, at Comic-Books and Rock N' Roll.

That were Easy Targets and Considered by the Status-Quo as a National Threat and at times, Believe it or Not, was Labeled as a "Communist Plot" to Corrupt.

In Fact, one of the Better of its Type "Blackboard Jungle" Married Rock and Roll with the Problem with its use of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock".

"City" would be a Good "Double Feature" with "Blackboard".

Highly Recommended for Students of Juvenile Delinquency, Film as Social Commentary, Film-Noir and the Basic Post-War Meilu.

Before the Eisenhower Era Tried to Put Down Anything that Smacked of Anti-Establishment Commentary.

Note...The Jazz Band and the Dance are a highlight.

They live in the slums of Brooklyn, and they think the whole world is against them. They're not a gang -- they say. They're a club. But when two of them kill their shop teacher, and they're all pulled in -- along with every other student of the teacher -- they begin to crack.

This movie is based on the Irving Shulman novel THE AMBOY DUKES. Portions of it were shot on site in Brooklyn: Williamsburg and Gerritsen Beach. With Brooklyn currently a hot spot for the hipsters, it's hard to imagine e hard living of the area, but it didn't begin to pick itself up until well into the 1980s. Although Stephen McNally, as the fellow who runs the youth center, hoping to save the kids, is top billed, there is some interesting talent among the young hoodlums: Richard Jaeckel and Anthony (later Tony) Curtis among them. Thelma Ritter plays the mother of one of them in weary mode -- amazing as always, even if this is one of the few performances she didn't get an Oscar nomination for.

The race of the people trapped in the slums may have changed, but not the situation.

This film is based on Irving Shulman's novel "The Amboy Dukes", which was about a Jewish gang in Brooklyn during WWII. The results of a wartime manufacturing boom has meant that 16 year old Frank and his 11 year old sister are left to raise themselves as both parents suddenly go from years on relief to jobs where there is plenty of overtime, as long as the war holds out. So they both work whatever shifts they can get, making hay while the sun shines.

The actual film changed a few things - some because of the changing times. Because the Brooklyn of 1944 and 1949 were worlds apart. Also the violence, casual sex, drug use, and prostitution that were staples of the novel were disallowed by the production code.

So the film changes the gangs to Catholic and Protestant kids. You meet Frankie Cusack on the morning of his 16th birthday. His parents are working as always, and his eleven year old sister surprises him with birthday banners. Frankie has some cash so he takes his sister over to Manhattan to see the attractions. But then, it is back to the hot tenement building where they live, and Frankie decides to go play pool with the Dukes, his gang. At this point Frankie is rather squeamish about the violence the Dukes do from time to time, mainly to people who owe money to a gangster in a bigger league than they are in. He mainly just wants to belong and thinks he has found a home in the Dukes.

Soon there is a planned move out of the tenement with babies crying and drunken couples brawling, and it looks like a new leaf for Frankie as his parents decide to buy a house in a better neighborhood. But then mom has appendicitis and the accompanying hospital bill means there will be no new house. They are all stuck right where they are. As life gets harder, so does Frankie. The next brawl the Dukes have, Frankie is really taking it out on the other guys. A couple of really bad choices later has Frankie and his Duke buddy Benny accidentally shooting their shop teacher dead with one of their home made guns. They ditch the gun and establish alibis, but the cops are suspicious of these two anyways and start following them around and putting the heat on them in a dozen different ways. Frankie thinks Benny will drink too much and talk. Benny thinks Frankie will talk to save his own neck.

This was one of the early films to talk about juvenile delinquency post-war. It shows the bad home conditions - often brought on by parents who have no time for anything but work - that cause kids to bring themselves up, often with bad influences as role models.

There is a very interesting dance scene at a party towards the end of the film. This was a good and rather long scene of swing dancing with a great African American band. It was the type of music and dancing popular a few years before rock and roll hit the scene.

This is probably notable in film history for the fact that two future stars had their first credited roles here. Thelma Ritter plays Frankie's world weary mom who never looks like she has had enough sleep. Tony Curtis, twelfth billed as Anthony Curtis, plays Mitch, one of the Dukes. At first he is practically mute, but as the film wears on he is given more and more to say. Probably because he has such presence in even such a small role.

Peter Fernandez is practically the whole show here as Frankie, the main character. Yet he never starred in another feature film again. Instead he found himself in TV roles, as well as directing and writing. He also "found his voice" in all kinds of films and productions doing voice overs. His acting career may have not worked out, but his life certainly did. An unusual happy story for someone who starts out a star but doesn't stay that way.