Too many fans seem to be blown away

Excellent, a Must See

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

And they lived happily ever afterwards. A rather simple minded allegory of bored youth evolving into gangs. Outside of a Catholic mass there appears to be no external influences. No family. No school. No female temporizing of male spirits. Eventually the stilted intervention of the police, like the apostle Paul to the misguided flock of Ephesus, turns unexplained badness to equally unexplained goodness. Yet in its earnestness I see no better explanation of gangs today - a rather sad commentary on the male psyche steeped in pointless machismo. The documentary is unfortunately marred by a total lack of cultural, economic or sociological explanation. The redemptive ending is as predictable as it is puzzling.

The people who made this short film were very sincere and tried to make a nice film about the evils of gangs and how everyone can just get along. The problem is that even though the film uses real gang members and was in some ways a positive thing, the production is so badly made that it made me laugh! I assume you'll probably feel about the same.One problem with the film is some of the acting. In particular, the cops could barely read their lines and sounded quite robotic. However, the supposedly poignant scene about the boy dying by falling off the cliff--that was amazingly bad! It's OBVIOUSLY a dummy being tossed own the hill and looks just horrible--so bad that you might think it was meant as a joke!! I am sure gang members that were shown this film thought is was hilarious--and you really cannot blame them. A truly awful public service film that was dated when it was made.

Based on a true story that took place in California. There is a Mexican gang and a white gang who hate each other with a passion. They're going to have an all out war to see who's better. The police hear about this and talk to Danny the leader of the Mexican gang to try to prevent it. The movie goes back in time and shows how,and why, the Mexican gang started. Then it comes back and shows Danny making a decision. It all leads to an unbelievable but predictable happy ending.Back in 1954 this must have been hard-hitting. Fights between interracial gangs were not shown in movies at all. Seen today it comes across as obvious and simplistic. They used real gang members to play the roles of the kids to add authenticity...but they were horrible actors. There was some very obvious overdubbing and the "fights" were obviously staged and ineptly done--it's pretty obvious that none of the kids were hurt. Still this movie is well intentioned and shed some light on a subject that most Americans didn't know about. For that alone I give it a 6.

Gang Boy (1954) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Sid Davis isn't a name most people know but he produced many "message" pictures that are currently being re-discovered on TCM Underground. Subjects ranged from drug abuse to STDs and racial hatred, which is the category this short falls into. Here we see a white gang and a Mexican gang getting into fights for reasons that they don't even know. A caring police officer finally makes both sit down together and discuss their feelings. The entire message of this picture could be laughed off but you have to give the film credit that it's heart was in the right place. As with most films from Davis, this one here was shot doubt with narration and other items editing it later. This brings a certain cheapness to the film and this is especially noticeable whenever the dialogue is added over the lips and it's never matching. I did find this short, running 27-minutes, to be a little better than some of the other Davis shorts I've seen because there were a few shocking moments in the film including a rather violent death sequence that I won't ruin but you'll certainly notice it when it happens. The color also helps as it really brings out some of the clothes being worn at the time as well as the many locations used. Another plus is the fact that the gang in the film were real gang members who really hated each other at the time. This isn't the greatest movie ever made and God knows there have been many better films dealing with gangs but this here isn't too bad if you have the time to kill.