John Frankenheimer: The Train

Growing up with action films in the ‘80s and ‘90s — memorizing every John Woo slow-mo gun battle, every world-weary Bruce Willis character quip, every Ah-nold one-liner, and every single frame of something like Lethal Weapon — I didn’t have to look hard to see the influence that Frankenheimer’s approach to the action film in The Train had on the films that I remember so fondly from my formative years. I love what Matt Zoller Seitz says in his remembrance of The Train, calling it: “A huge, roiling, clanking, screeching, rumbling hulk of mayhem that seizes you from frame one and never lets go, the film takes such visible delight in the image of small, desperate men blowing huge things sky-high that it amounts to the very first Joel Silver picture.”

Indeed, The Train does remind one of those early ‘80s/’90s Joel Silver produced actioners, but it’s also something that those movies so often fail at being: it gets you to care about the characters without spending a whole lot of time on character development. There’s something to be said about the way Frankenheimer keeps his film moving at the clip it does but also makes sure to stop long enough so that the viewer is always able to get their bearing and be sure what the characters’ motivations are. This isn't just a fun action movie because stuff gets blowed-up real good; it’s an impressive technical spectacle because, to be sure, but it's also impressive in how it gets you to care about what's happening despite its economy of dialogue and character development. Again, I’ll invoke the great Matt Zoller Seitz here: The Train “balances intellectualized suspense and primitive violence, so that one quality reinforces the other in a never ending cycle of mechanized frenzy and spooky stillness.”

I’ll get back to that “spooky stillness," first, though, the plot: Set in occupied France during the last days of Nazi control, The Train concerns itself with Paul Labiche (Burt Lancaster), a French railroad engineer and Resistance fighter who must keep a train filled with valuable art from leaving France for Germany. Colonel von Waldheim (Paul Scofield), is the German military officer in charge of the train, and he carries a special affinity for the art collection that he watched over in occupied Paris. His plan is to take art back to his homeland despite orders to the contrary; however, Labiche and his team try to thwart his efforts.
It’s a pretty simple premise, really, and that’s what is so refreshing about it. The motivations for both characters are clear, and we get the classic cat-and-mouse game between Labiche and von Waldheim that would be just as at home in something like (to pick a random ‘90s action movie that I love) Andrew Davis’ Under Siege. And because of The Train’s simplicity, the temptation is there to see the movie as nothing more than impressive setpiece after impressive setpiece.

But Frankenheimer gives us moments that challenges this all-style-no-substance argument like the exchange between our two main characters at the end where von Walheim says, "Those paintings mean as much to you as a string of pearls to an ape!" This statement makes the viewer question Labiche’s motives throughout the film. He may indeed “feel” nothing for the art, so what his motivation then? His sense of duty? Mere revenge? Is it a moral stance (the film does seem to be about the value of life being more important than the value of art). These are questions that most action films don’t ask their audiences to consider, but Frankenheimer does, and he has summed up his reputation as an action director in numerous interviews, calling himself a director of “character-based action movies.”

These deeper character aspects of the film were intended to be more overt during the film’s initial production. Due to the disappointing returns after making Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, Burt Lancaster was extremely cognizant of his waning stardom. When he signed on to do The Train, the film’s initial director, Arthur Penn, was much more interested in making it a small-scale character study. Nervous that this would only compound his run of bad box office, Lancaster fired the director and called in his favorite for-hire filmmaker Frankenheimer. I have made mention of this before, but their working relationship always makes me laugh. Perhaps Lancaster brought Frankenheimer on because he knew that Frankenheimer would let him do his thing and instead focus on the technical aspects of the film.

And so it was: Frankenheimer asked the studio to shut down production in order to allow him the appropriate amount of time to rewrite the script, turning The Train from small-scale character study to larger, more ambitious action film. But again, that doesn’t the mean the film is without heart, nor does it mean that Frankenheimer’s only imprint on the film is from the technical side of things. The Train’s character's aren’t merely cutouts designed to stand in front of large-scale setpieces where lots of things explode.

In fact, Frankenheimer has said, “Actually, all of my films have the same theme, and that's a definite choice on my part. I take a character and push him to his physical or emotional limit, to see how he reacts. I think that's the only way you can ever really reach the limits of a human personality, and that's what I'm interested in exploring in my films." So instead of making the film a smaller-scale character study, Frankenheimer heightened the action in order to achieve the same goal that Penn was going for.

A quick note about the actors playing those characters: Both Lancaster and Scofield are great as two stubborn men engaged in a battle of wills (there is a small role for Jeanne Moreau, playing an innkeeper , who assists Labiche, but it feels like another shoehorned female role in an all-male movie a la Ava Gardner’s role in Seven Days in May). Once the action starts, and the motivations for both characters becomes more about defeating the other, The Train never lets up, and neither do the characters. Von Waldheim and Labiche both suffer from a case of severe tunnel vision and are willing to go to great lengths (and in some cases even kill) in order to win their cat-and-mouse game, disregarding the effect it has on those around them. I love the way Scofield utters that final line to Lancaster’s Labiche (stated above); it’s his final attempt to differentiate himself as being better/different than Labiche. Lancaster is equal to the task (I’m warming up to him the more and more I see him in these strong, silent type roles) and a real physical presence on the screen (I also love that he doesn’t even attempt to do a French accent). Lancaster’s performance, in fact, gives credence to the notion that The Train is a masculine action film at its very core.

I want to get back, for a moment, to that phrase that Matt Zoller Seitz used in his essay on the film: “spooky stillness.” Yes, the film is masculine (Burt Lancaster being the avatar for such masculinity as it sure seems like he’s doing his own stunts here, and pay attention to the scene where he is panting like a madman as he crawls up a steep hill and then takes a dangerous fall down the hill in, again, what looks like the actor doing his own stunt), but it also slows down for more reverent moments. And this is due in large part to the way Frankenheimer frames his shots or slows down just enough so that we let the power of a scene wash over us while only hearing the mechanical noises of the train.

The framing in the film is classic Frankenheimer — as we’ve discussed numerous times during this retrospective, he frequently uses wide angle lenses and shoots characters in a basic two shot but employs deep focus — and the most effective of these framing devices is when the elderly train engineer, Papa Boule (Michel Simon), is executed. While Labiche pleads with Colonel von Waldheim, we see in the background the three German soldiers shoot their guns, and then from behind a wall we see Boule’s body slump down. It’s a powerful moment — made more so by the way Frankenheimer frames it and then isn’t in a hurry to rush to the next scene. “Spooky stillness,” indeed.

The Train is one of the most brilliantly kinetic action films I’ve ever seen. And even if one chooses to disregard its obvious (or “low hanging,” an annoying term that so many poo-pooers like to say and then pat themselves on the back) existentialist tone and themes, it still has its technical merits to fall back on — it still can be regarded and studied as an important and masterful piece of filmmaking purely based on its technical merits. Every frame of this black-and-white beauty has something interesting to look at: the characters faces (again, often shot close-up and in a two shot with deep focus), the grimy and gray setting that fills the frame, the way the action drives the narrative (the editing is really something). It’s a film with some serious impact — there’s a real tangible quality about the film — as Frankenheimer gives us shots of the giant train barreling towards the camera (we understand early how massive this piece of machinery is), or showing in high angle long shots of the train barely escaping huge explosions and a potentially disastrous derailing (which, as shots go, must have been hell setting up for). It’s truly a piece of filmmaking that holds up — not only does it hold up, but it puts nearly every modern action film to shame — and showcases what Frankenheimer was best at. The Train, like the best actioners from any era, is a film you feel.

Frankenheimer would return to the paranoid thriller with his next film, Seconds (it would conclude his unofficial “paranoid trilogy”), but would close out the decade with more elaborate, setpiece oriented films like Grand Prix and The Gypsy Moths. But neither of those films are quite as good at balancing the character elements with the technical elements, making The Train one of Frankenheimer’s best, most memorable films of his very prolific and successful run during the ‘60s (we’ll talk more about this with his other films, but the ‘60s were an interesting time for Frankenheimer — perhaps the last decade where he was a real “known” filmmaker before the Scorsese’s and Spielberg’s and Friedkin’s and Coppola’s burst onto the scene kind of leaving him in the dust).

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John Frankenheimer: Seven Days in May

Based on the best-selling novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles Waldo Bailey II, Seven Days in May is sometimes referred to as Frankenheimer resting on his laurels by following up his previous film — the masterful The Manchurian Candidate — with yet another paranoid political thriller. That’s a bit unfair, though. Seven Days in May doesn’t have much in common with The Manchurian Candidate. It takes itself too seriously to be a satire, and it seems that Frankenheimer and his screenwriter, Rod Serling, are too busy emphasizing Big Important Speeches than ensuring that there’s any kind of drama or intrigue in the film. The film has a great cast and a fantastic opening sequence, but it ultimately is just too talky. Some of those talky scenes really work thanks to the acting (especially a scene near the end between Burt Lancaster and Frederic March), but ultimately the film feels a lot like Frankenheimer’s previously flawed films like The Birdman of Alcatraz: a film heavy on exposition with some good acting and good setpiece mixed in — but there isn’t much more to it than that.

The premise of Seven Days in May is as follows: Lancaster plays General James M. Scott, who is convinced that President Jordan Lyman (March) is too soft on America's enemies. He feels so deeply about this that he plots a military takeover of the United States. Every time President Lyman gets close to figuring out the scheme, though, he is derailed by political protocol. Eventually, Lyman seeks the aide of the man who first uncovered the plot: Colonel "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas), who is more of a reluctant aide as his ties are very strong to the General.

You see, General Scott has formed a secret base in New Mexico, which serves as headquarters for his plan to overthrow the government. But Colonel Casey begins to think things are odd when he hears of this base — which he is unfamiliar with — as well as references to other bases and units and suspicious protocols that he is unfamiliar with. All of this piques his interest, concerning him to the point where he has no choice but to set aside his loyalty to the General and tell the president about his suspicions that General Scott is planning a military coup d’etat under the guise of a military exercise. 

Seven Days in May is one of the first paranoid thrillers, but it’s not one of the better ones. There are parts where the film really moves — especially in a “The West Wing” kind of a way where there isn’t a whole lot happening on screen, but the acting is so good and the delivery of the dialogue so stellar, that it’s hardly noticeable that we’re essentially just watching people sit/stand around and talk.  The film may feel a bit dated (unlike Manchurian) to some since — as Frankenheimer admitted in the DVD commentary — modern audiences would never be able to accept the premise because such a secret plan in the modern technological age could never go by undetected the way it does in this film. He also stated that audiences would never accept the premise because modern opinions of politicians is lower than it has ever been, so audiences would simply roll their eyes at the President’s speech that ends the film.

But I don’t know that I agree with Frankenheimer. Audiences bought Aaron Sorkin’s idealized White House in “The West Wing,” and as I mentioned above, the film’s emphasis on big speeches about honor and duty and other bits of exposition underlining American Pride is something that would be right up Sorkin’s alley — so the film doesn’t feel too dated.

And whether or not the film may or may not be dated isn’t even the film’s biggest flaw — that would be Rod Serling’s (best known for “The Twilight Zone,” obviously) script and the unconvincing deus ex machina ending. A lot was changed from the source material, actually, most notably the ending where General Scott gets into a car and simply drives home—his name disgraced and career over after his plan has been outed—whereas in the novel Scott drives his car head-on into another car, killing himself. There’s also the matter of the totally unconvincing subplot concerning General Scott’s former mistress, which feels like nothing more than a way to shoehorn Ava Gardner into the film (otherwise it would have been all men in the film). In addition to these flaws, the film is just too talky in parts and is a bit of a slog through the middle portions where it becomes a pretty dull procedural, but that soggy middle is bookended by some great moments that make the film worth seeking out (and make it so much more than a mere Manchurian clone). 

The opening of Seven Days in May — a protest outside of the White House (which was legitimately shot outside of the front gate of the White House without problems thanks to Pierre Salinger’s, President Kennedy’s Press Secretary, insistence that President Kennedy wanted the film made) gone awry — is one of Frankenheimer’s standout setpieces. It’s really the primary reason to check out the film. In my previous essay on The Manchurian Candidate, I brought up the quote from Jonathan Rosenbaum where he said that The Manchurian Candidate could “conceivably be the only commercial American film linked to the French New Wave.” Here, that link is more overt than ever. The immediacy Frankenheimer and his DP Ellsworth Fredericks give the scene and the way they free their camera from the tripod is really quite jarring when you consider the small, talky movie that follows.

Here, Frankenheimer once again relies on his experiences with live television as he moves through the crowd of protesters, making it feel like we’re right there in the fight, and at one point even mounts his camera on the back of police motorcycle. The scene is chaotic (and reminds the viewer of the aesthetic choices used in the fantastic ending to Manchurian), and it is no doubt exciting stuff for the time, but, unfortunately, it is also the most exciting and intriguing thing about the film as every scene that follows fails to live up to this great opening.

Frankenheimer's style of direction is perfect for this film. He uses the same framing techniques and deep focus and wide-angle shots as well as low camera angles that he’s used in all of his previous films. He also worries about the filmmaking and lets his actors act. In an interview with Frank Sinatra on the DVD for The Manchurian Candidate, Sinatra noted how impressed he was with Frankenheimer that he trusted his actors to make the right choices when it came to the script. This is probably because Frankenheimer is a director that is more concerned with the technical aspects of the film than with choices the actors make (why else would he continue to work with Burt Lancaster when the two didn’t really see eye-to-eye?) , and even though the opening scene is a great example of Frankenheimer’s gift for memorable setpieces, Seven Days in May is also a great showcase for its actors, showing that Frankenheimer could facilitate some great performances out of a low key character drama.

Douglas is great as Colonel Casey, displaying an array of conflicting emotions as he juggles loyalty to his country and loyalty to the General. He was also more invested than if this were just a normal job, for he was one of the major driving forces in getting the film made. Initially he was to play General Scott; however, he insisted that Burt Lancaster be in the film and take the much juicer role. This was all very much to the chagrin of Frankenheimer, who, as we’ve discussed in other entries of this retrospect, had some major problems with the star. Ironically, Douglas and Frankenheimer would be the ones that would butt-heads on the set, while Lancaster would continue to collaborate with Frankenheimer on two more films (The Train and The Gypsy Moths).

Lancaster and Frederic March have a fantastic verbal confrontation at the end that, in addition to the opening protest sequence, is the other highlight of the film. I loved the was Lancaster just barrels through the President’s arguments because he knows he’s right, and portrays this character as a man obsessed with his righteousness.It’s not just Douglass, Lancaster, and March that are worth watching, though: Seven Days in May also has a couple of nice supporting performances. Character actors Martin Balsam and Edmond O'Brien are great as President Lyman's advisors.

In wrapping this up, I don’t want it to sound like I’m ragging on Seven Days in May too much. There’s a lot to like here, but the film is a bit of let down coming on the heels of The Manchurian Candidate. Still, the opening is fantastic, and the acting is top notch. Ultimately, it feels a bit like a film Frankenheimer needed to get off of his chest and then move on something less political. However, Burt Lancaster would call upon the filmmaker to rescue yet another one of his films (read: let Lancaster do whatever he wanted), this time from Arthur Penn, as Frankenheimer was brought on for a complete overhaul of The Train, taking it from in-depth character study to action film. The results are a finished product that is certainly the opposite of Seven Days in May.

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John Frankenheimer: The Birdman of Alcatraz

Here’s what I know about The Birdman of Alcatraz: I hadn’t seen it since the summer when I started this retrospective, and I looking around for my notes, I could only scrounge up, “At 143 minutes, the film is way too long.” Insightful, I know. So, seeing how the film is on Amazon Prime at the moment, I decided to re-watch it since I honestly could remember nothing about it, and my notes weren’t offering any help. Well, I can confirm: at 143 minutes, the film is way too long. Like 43 minutes too long. The Birdman of Alcatraz seems to be a popular entry in Franklin’s oeuvre, but I cannot understand why this is. It has little-to-none of the aesthetic flourishes one would associate with Frankenheimer’s later work (as in later that year with the much, much better The Manchurian Candidate), and it boasts one of the most prosaic performances of Burt Lancaster’s (who I am admittedly not a huge fan of) career. The parts of the film that do work are buoyed by some great supporting performances by Karl Malden and Telly Savalas, and an impressive setpiece when the prisoners riots. Other than that, it’s a totally skippable film.

The well-known story is as follows: Robert Stroud (Lancaster) is imprisoned at a young age for a murder he committed in Alaska. He is taken to Leavenworth Prison where he has some run-ins with the  warden (Malden). While in prison, he learns of a situation where his mother was denied the right to see him. Angered by this, Stroud kills a guard and is sentenced to death; however, his mother stages a successful campaign to change the death sentence to life in prison, and the judge agrees so long as the terms include that Stroud spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement.

While in solitary, Stroud adopts a pet sparrow, which acts as the catalyst for him collecting different types of birds and cages. When the birds fall ill, Stroud experiments with a cure, and as the film’s story moves forward in time, we see Stroud not as a homicidal killer but as an expert on bird diseases (even publishing a book about the subject). Stroud eventually marries (much to the chagrin of his mother) and begins selling his remedies. However, he is transferred to Alcatraz — which was new at the time — where he is not allowed to keep his birds. And it is there where perhaps Stroud’s legend grew largest.

The rest of the film concerns itself with an again Stroud who is mostly shown as the reluctant rabble-rouser rather than the rebellious and ruthless inmate he supposedly was. Lancaster’s decision to play Stroud’s rebellious attitude as doing what’s best for his fellow inmates in the name of cruel treatment by the prison system is one of the film’s major flaws.

The Birdman of Alcatraz was Lancaster’s pet project. It’s far too serious, subjective, and self-serving to be an effective piece of filmmaking. Lancaster was inspired by Thomas Gaddis’ profile on the convict’s life and rehabilitation. It is said that it touched Lancaster deeply, and this is, I think, the film’s ultimate undoing. Lancaster is too much in the business of idealizing Stroud (again, known to be a prickly customer, even during his “Birdman” phase) that totally removes any intrigue from the film — handcuffing Frankenheimer and the writers so that it is impossible to view Stroud as anything but an angel. A much more interesting film could have been made about a conflicted, complex, and (yes) even dickish Stroud — who, despite being a convicted murder, does some good. But I didn’t feel like that was the person I got to see.

But, the dulling of Stroud’s rough edges was intentional. Lancaster made Stroud into more of an existential character — doing good despite the warden and other’s disapproval. This is a character type not uncommon to Frankenheimer films, but again, this version of Stroud (who Lancaster thought was more of a victim of the system than a cold-blooded killer) is nothing more than an avatar for Lancaster’s message: we need to rethink our prison system. A noble intent, indeed, but one that is too sugary-sweet  in its portrayal of a known psychopath to support a 143 minute prison drama. The film’s best scenes are when Stroud’s intentions are challenged, specifically in the scene between Lancaster and Malden. But moments like that are few and far between.

Frankenheimer does his best to light scenes in a manner that suggests as much space as possible — even though Stroud spent 43 years in solitary confinement, you’d never know by the way the film’s mise-en-scene. But this isn’t one of Frankenheimer’s more stylized efforts. In fact, this is more “A Burt Lancaster film” than a “John Frankenheimer film,” and even though the filmmaker was proud of the final product, he did voice regret over the chance to make the film he could have made out of the subject material. But since Frankenheimer came to the film incredibly late (he was honestly shocked that Lancaster wanted to work with him again after their not-so-great experience working together on The Young Savages), and Lancaster insisted on controlling every aspect of the process, it’s no surprise that outside of the prison riot, we don’t see a lot of what we associate with Frankenheimer.

So as it is, The Birdman of Alcatraz is a too-long drama with some decent supporting performances. But it can’t truly be considered a Frankenheimer film, and even if we were to consider it so, it’s not a very good one. It’s far too impressed with its own sense of moral duty and far, far too languid in its pacing (and not in a good, contemplative way) to elicit any kind of response beyond, “that was a professionally made movie.” No, the real show-stealer of Frankenheimer’s prolific year in film would be his third and final film of 1962, the brilliant (and still exhilarating and relevant) The Manchurian Candidate.

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John Frankenheimer: The Young Savages

Note: Some of Frankenheimer’s films are pretty hard to come by, one of those being his debut film, The Young Stranger, so I had to start this retrospective with his second film. There’s about a handful of films I couldn’t get a hold of; I will try my best to fill in the blanks as I go.


After a less than thrilling experience shooting his feature film The Young Stranger, John Frankenheimer returned to television (where he got his start) for four years (a practice he would continue throughout his career — proudly showing that he was always a man of television that could bring cinematic ambitions to the small screen) before returning to theatrical filmmaking with his second feature, The Young Savages. Frankenheimer didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for The Young Savages, and it shows in certain scenes, particularly the final 30 minutes of the film where the ambitions of he and his star, Burt Lancaster, pretty much derail the film. But the way he imbues just his second feature with so many stylistic flourishes (a definite sign of things to come for him and his DP Lionel Lindon) keeps one intrigued enough despite the film’s well-intentioned but ultimately flawed narrative.


The story of The Young Savages is really no different than the countless other “juvie” films released around the ‘50s and early ‘60s. In New York’s Spanish Harlem, a 15-year-old blind boy is stabbed to death by three Italian thugs. The street toughs are eventually arrested, and the politically ambitious DA, Dan Cole (Edward Andrews), pushes hard for the death penalty. However, the crime isn’t as cut-and-dry as Cole thinks it is, and his assistant, Hank Bell (Lancaster), who himself was a product of the slums before changing his name from Bellini to Bell while pursuing his career, tries to convince his boss that further investigation in the matter is needed.

Throughout Bell’s investigation we come to find that the onus he has put on himself to uncover the truth is a little more complicated than just hitting the streets and asking questions. Bell’s former fiancée, Mary (Shelley Winters), is the mother of one of the three thugs accused of the murder. In addition, Bell’s wife, Karin (Dina Merrill), takes on the voice of the liberal who is anti-capital punishment. So there are many voices of influence swirling around Bell as he investigates the murder and struggles to uncover the truth and do the right thing. What he ends up finding out is that the boy was actually the head of a Puerto Rican gang (using his guise as a blind kid to hide drugs and weapons since I guess cops would never suspect a blind kid of being mixed up in a gang), and that he was the pimp for his 13-year-old sister.

When Bell uncovers this truth, he is beaten down, stomped to a bloody pulp, by some thugs in the subway. This is the catalyst for Bell to embrace the Bellini within him and see that these kids didn’t murder by choice—it was a product of the environment they’re from. He also begins to feel a strong urge to protect his fellow Italians from the “menacing” Puerto Ricans (who proceed to harass Bell’s wife) even if it means self-sabotage for his political career. Feeling compelled to tank the case in order to stay true to his convictions, Bell argues for the trio of murderers by film’s end.

Surely this kind of material was a bit shocking at the time with its use of a 15-year-old blind kid pimping out his sister and acting as the head of a gang (nothing at all shocking to us now as it would probably pass these days as an episode of “Law and Order”), but I don’t think that the film’s ambitions as a socially conscience message picture mix well with the film’s trappings rooted in exploitation “juvie” pictures, especially since the latter is just so much more interesting than the former. I will say this about the film’s ambitions as a message picture though: The idea of leaving behind who you truly are to get ahead (The whole internal dilemma surrounding Bell/Bellini) and the portrayal of the Italian thugs as a product of a twisted society (in one scene, one of the thug’s tells Bell that his father was a drunk, his mother takes in boarders and then goes out with them, and that he isn’t even sure his sister is his sister) causing them to be the way they are, is a commendable one.

So, kudos go to Frankenheimer for broaching such important sociological issues as race and geography and poverty, but the execution doesn’t match the well-intentioned effort, for what truly stands out in the film — and the only real reason to still see it today — are those aesthetic flourishes that seem rooted in exploitation — the very thing that keeps the film’s narrative from truly resonating. It’s a dilemma, fir sure, but man does Frankenheimer make the film look way more interesting than your run-of-the-mill “juvie” exploitation film. Which shouldn’t come as a shock since the director would meld exploitation with loftier, aesthetic ambitions frequently throughout his career; but here, with The Young Savages, it is interesting to see those ambitions at their gestation.

The opening credits sequence which leads to the stabbing that acts as the catalyst for the film’s story is a doozy. It’s the highlight of the movie with its close-ups of "juvie" iconography (boots, rolled up jeans, et al) found in films of the late '50s, handheld work, stylized shots (I like the shot of the chaos of the opening stabbing reflected in the lens of sunglasses, another bit of "juvie" iconography), on-location shooting, deep focus (a favorite of Frankenheimer’s), and Dutch angles. In other words, if The Young Savages tells us anything, it’s that the opening credits portend everything that Frankenheimer would refine over his career. Credit most definitely also goes to Frankenheimer’s DP, Lionel Lindon, who collaborated with Frankenheimer on some of his most visually memorable films like The Manchurian Candidate and Grand Prix. The Young Savages is an impressive looking film for something that traditionally comes off as B-grade level.

More about imagery in the opening: I like what Frankenheimer is doing by opening the film with an innocent enough shot of a child buying an ice cream: simplistic and relatable. Who hasn’t, as a child, reveled in the small joy of an ice cream cone on a hot summer day? The image seems simplistic enough, but in reality — as the film’s procedural uncovers more and more about the truth of those opening moments — as we think back on this image we realize that this is the blind boy’s sister, who we’ve also come to realize as the film progresses is being pimped out by her 15-year-old brother. Now the image takes on a whole new meaning, and once again Frankenheimer has taken a simple bit of iconography from countless other films of this ilk, and twisted it just-so to make it much more disturbingly ironic image than first suggested.

The acting is good but not great. I’ve never been the biggest Burt Lancaster fan, but he’s fine and all here; however, as previously stated, the convictions of the actor and the director to make this a message-heavy film really bogs things down in the second half, especially with the stomping scene and the revelation that he’s still “one of them.” Lancaster was somewhat known for thinking that films should really say something (speaking to the widest audience possible) but also be of high quality (speaking to cinephiles). It’s a nice idea and all, but the execution of the narrative, especially the courtroom scene (which takes up about 20 minutes of the film), is all askew and comes off as rather hokey. It's something that, according to Stephen B. Armstrong in his book on Frankenheimer, Pictures About Extremes, states was a problem with some of their collaborations, especially their subsequent picture, The Birdman of Alcatraz. Shelley Winters and Telly Savalas (10 years before he played Theo Kojak) also star and are quite good in their small roles.

Despite the narrative failings of the film, it must be said that early in his career, Frankenheimer was interested in doing something different by making movies about the marginalized as characters to focus on and center the action around. And not for simplistic reasons of exploiting those character types, either. I’m sure we’ll return to this idea throughout this retrospective, for it is one of the traits (along with his visual style) that defines much of Frankenheimer’s work. The following year was a busy one for Frankenheimer, who would have three (!) films released, two of which were, arguably, his most popular and famous films of the ‘60s: The Manchurian Candidate and The Birdman of Alcatraz. But we’ll first look at the less popular of the three, All Fall Down, starring Warren Beatty and Eva Maire Saint and adapted for the screen by William Inge.

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