User reviews

( Minor Spoilers) Somewhat of a novelty about the founding of the New York Police Athletic League, PAL, in that the film "Juvenile Court" addresses the problems of growing up in the crime ridden slums of New York City, in the depression era 1930's, and what it does to the young people who are affected by growing up there, with 1950's and 1960's liberal points of views. Stubby Adams has nothing to look forward to in life but a life as a career criminal and the fact that his older brother Dutch was sentenced to the chair for murder makes it more certain that he'll follow in Dutch's footsteps.

It's when public defender, who unsuccessfully defended Dutch, Gary Franklin who's also a product of the slums decides to start a league to give the young people like Stubby a chance to get away from crime. It then that things start to get better for all involved but it's Stubby's bitterness against both Franklin and the police whom he sees as his mortal enemies that leads him after he was turning away to go back to his criminal activities. All this over a measly $5.00 tip that he got, as an usher at the PAL boxing matches, that he was forced to return in keeping PAL from going broke.

Not only going back to his life of crime but taking his friends, who are also PAL members, along with him for the ride leads to Pig Head Olsen, who was on parole from reform school, to almost end up getting killed. This happened when he jumped from a speeding car, that Stubby stole, in order to avoid being arrested by the perusing police. Stubby later has a change of life experience as he realizes what a first class jerk he is in not only wrecking his but his friends, Mickey Lefty as well as the seriously injured Pig Head, lives. Sabby did did all this damage over a $5.00 bill that ballooned into his ripping off the PAL box office of all the money that it accumulated for it's sponsored boxing matches.

It took a lot more that being a neighborhood wise guy and jailbird wannabe, like his older brother Dutch, for Stubby to not only turn himself into the police but take all the blame as well getting Lefty Mickey and Pig Head off the hook. In the end it was the grateful and forgiving young people at PAL who refused to press charges against Stubby, and give him a second chance keeping him from doing a stretch of hard time in prison. That showed Stubby that being honest and law abiding is far more rewarding then anything he could have gotten out of life as a hardened criminal. A life which lead his older brother Dutch, whom he always looked up to, to get a one way ticket to the Sing Sing hot seat.

Besides having a heart lifting storyline the movie "Juvenile Court" also has a very young, barley out of her teens, Rita Hayworth as Stubby's older sister Marcia. Who together with public defender and PAL founder Gary Franklin tried to straighten her troubled brother out. Still it was Stubby himself who in the end saw the light, in seeing what his tough guy persona was leading him into, and did it himself.

A quick look on Wikipedia tells the real story of the Police Athletic League and how it was founded. For one thing it was founded over 20 years earlier before this film Juvenile Court came out.

Juvenile Court is yet another of the films that Harry Cohn was using to build up Rita Hayworth. In this film Rita is the sister of notorious public enemy John Tyrell and they have a younger brother Frankie Darro who looks like he's going to go the same route as big brother. In fact the film opens with the cops capturing Tyrell in a shootout.

Tyrell is found guilty even after an eloquent plea by his public defender lawyer Paul Kelly. Both Darro and Hayworth vent on Kelly, but after a while Hayworth warms up to him a bit especially after his idea of the Police Athletic League with the police sponsoring youth activities for the slum kids.

Darro is one tough nut to crack however and he and a few friends nearly wreck the PAL before it gets off the ground.

The plot if anyone noticed is taken straight from Boys Town. It also has a generous helping of Dead End kid attitude from Darro and his friends. Still it certainly didn't hurt Rita Hayworth's career to be associated with Juvenile Court. At the end there is a quasi judicial juvenile court of sorts.

This film is an obvious knockoff of the Warner Brothers "Dead End Kids" films (such as DEAD END, ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES and MAYOR OF HELL)--with Frankie Darro doing a very good copy Leo Gorcey as a tough-talking juvenile gang leader. Plus, in a not very subtle attempt to copy, the studio even hired Leo Gorcey's brother, David, to be one of the gang members! Looking back at the Dead End Kids films, it's hard to imagine WHY anyone would want to copy them, but you must remember that these films were very popular and pretty well-written. It was only later with the moniker "Bowry Boys" did the films become rather cheap and formulaic B-pictures.

Now JUST being a knock-off is NOT why I rank the film so low (though, of course, this DID have a negative effect). The biggest problem is the plot itself. It is very, very derivative AND really, really sappy and poorly written. Would you like to hear some of the great dialog? Here are a couple examples: "Go slap a flounder, ya big flatfoot", "He can take it--yeah, he'll take it like a man" as well as the stellar "Society is an accessory to his crimes".

The film begins with a career criminal and murderer in court--being defended by Paul Kelly. Instead of presenting a defense, Kelly whines and talks about how society is actually to blame for this man being a killer. This bleeding heart tirade seems to go on forever, but to no avail--the mug is sentenced to death. Part of me wished they'd sentenced Kelly was well just to shut him up and stop the preaching!

The story later becomes a well-meaning but also totally clichéd and stupid. This crusading defense lawyer also wants to find something positive for the kids in the ghetto (which, by the way is amazingly ethnic and Black person-free). So, he suggests a "Police Athletic Association" (like we have today in many parts of the country). However, unlike the real P.A.L., this one makes kids sort of like junior cops and the thugs go from law-breakers to little stoolies without skipping a beat.

By the way, using Rita Hayworth in the film was a very cynical move by Columbia Pictures, as they had her made up to look almost exactly like Ann Sheridan (who had played almost the exact same role in several Dead End Kids films). In fact, the looked almost like twins and spoke almost the exact same lines of dialog. Poor Miss Hayworth deserved better, but at this point in her career she wasn't yet a star and had to take what the studio gave her.

While very difficult to believe, the film also bogs down because its answers are so overly simplistic, the plot is 100% predictable and the film itself is way too talky. For a bunch of street-wise punks, they sure talk a lot and break only a few laws. My advice is just skip this film and see any of the three I mentioned above. They are more original, have better writing and don't seem as sappy and hard to take. Believe me, this is NOT a film I want to see again!

Juvenile Court (1938)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Columbia "B" film is a poor man's version of The Dead End Kids. A public defender (Paul Kelly) wants to clean up the slums by building a recreational center for poor kids so that they'll stay off the streets. This film runs 60-minutes and if you've seen one Dead End Kids flick then you've pretty much seen every second of this movie. The kids here are even more annoying than The Dead End Kids and the supporting players really don't do too much. Rita Hayworth has a small, thankless role as one of the kid's sister. David Gorcey, a Dead End Kid member, has a small role as well.

Released the same year as "boys town" ,this "juvenile court" deals with the same subject ,Tracy's Father Flannagan being replaced by a lawyer with a big heart .It's shorter ,with a running time of 60 min.

Full of finer feelings ,featuring a gorgeous but essentially decorative young Rita Hayworth who could sing "blame it on mama" here,like she would do in "Gilda", for the lawyer insists these young boys are bad because they come from the wrong side of town ,from the slums.That's why he fails to save the big brother:"you too,says the judge ,come from the poor part of town ,and however ,you made your way";one should note that the magistrate does not let the lawyer answer :maybe he would have argued that he had a papa and a mama who took care of him,even if they were uneducated .

The Police Athletic League (PAL :what a good idea!)is the way to keep the youth on the straight and narrow through education and sport ;it's more convincing in "boys town" ,but if you want to feel optimistic -which is not obvious through our trouble times- ,you can watch this juvenile court which in the end shows more sympathy for the lowly of birth than the legal one.