No More Rumbles

Not my favorite in this tremendous TV show, because I have never craved for juvenile delinquency street gangs stories. But this fashion belongs to this late fifties, early sixties period, thanks to Nicholas Ray and his REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, that widely opened the way, I mean opened a boulevard, to this kind of plots. And, as I will always repeat, this series is a social study of the urban society in the USA during this transition era. Juvenile delinquency is more social than crime for me, unlike the Dillinger or Mafia stories. NAKED CITY spoke, as here, of some kind of concrete, asphalt jungle, and also of rooftops intrigues, because you'll see many, many many rooftops scenes in this series; sometimes with pigeons, sometimes not.... But such a series speaking of the urban New-York jungle without involving rooftops or the famous summer heat, would be like a western without a saloon, desert pursuit or a military fort.

A poor depiction of the topical Juvenile Delinquency theme stars David Winters as a young gang member who's put in an impossible situation when his pal in the gang and he's assigned as the trigger man to kill the other gang's guy who did it as retribution.

It's a story that paints a hopeless picture of a kid who works as a go-fer in the Garment District and whose prospects are nil. He longs for Lucy to be his girlfriend but she's mean to him -Sandy Smith in the role is a pretty starlet, but her various TV credits indicate she didn't make the grade.

Lead role is played by English teen David Winters, who's styled like a cross between later B-movie creep Arch Hall Jr. And much later loser Pauly Shore (ugh!). He went on to form Action International Pictures and produce a string of consistently lousy grade Z action movies.

****SPOILERS***** After Ram-Rod of the street gang The Hawkes iced little Pancho of the Flying Dragons it was decided by the Dragon's war chief Packy to whack Ram-Rod in revenge. And the man assigned to do the hit is the late Pancho's good friend 16 year old Marty Nemo. Marty is a bit scared to do the hit and secretly calls the police telling them that Ram-Rod is to be whacked that evening at the local movie theater that's featuring the 1958 film "God's Little Acer". Marty thinks that will get him off the hook in killing Ram-Rod but things turn out a bit to complicated for him. Packy & Co,the Flying Dragons, are to be there watching Marty do his job. And if he doesn't he'll be the one that will get hit instead.

It's a life experience for Marty in seeing just who his friends are as he debates what to do in killing Ram-Rod that if caught could but him behind bars for the next 20 years. But in the end he chickens out and does the right thing in not killing Ram-Rod who in fact killed his best friend Little Pancho in cold blood. It's Packy who does the job on him and in return ends up paying for it.

As for Marty he finally sees the light in what being a gang member is and quits the Flaying Dragons as well as the self-centered Lucy the girl that he's in love with who turned her back on him when he really needed her. Now with a clean slate or record and a new start in life he can go back to his job in the garment center as a cloths pusher and leave the gang violence far far behind him.

The half-hour format of the series at this point in its history gives us too little time for dramatic development, or learning much about the characters, but director William Beaudine makes up for that shortcoming with non-stop action. David Winters, who was an alumnus of WEST SIDE STORY on Broadway (and later in the movie) gives a charismatic portrayal of a gang member who wants something more out of life than violence and revenge, but has no clue how to get it. The rest of the cast doesn't get to do too much. And talking of WEST SIDE STORY, more generalized fans of Leonard Bernstein's music may want to see this episode to hear the composer's music for ON THE WATERFRONT tracked in through most of the show.