The Young One

To viewers in 1960 this mostly seemed a rather turgid and unappealing tale of a bigot's reform, compromised by its trashy atmosphere. The key to the film, I believe, is Bunuel's admiration for the writing of the Marquis de Sade. The Zachary Scott character has a whole host of unexamined prejudices, not merely a racial one-- and when that one tumbles, his mind is liberated in all directions. The fact that this includes being "freed" from conventional sexual morality is the Sadean aspect of it-- as in A Clockwork Orange (but no other film that I can think of besides these two), true freedom is by no means an entirely positive or benevolent thing.

I just got to see this film a few days ago and it is without a doubt a forgotten classic that like "The Defiant Ones" which preceded it and "To Kill A Mockingbird" which followed it deals with racism in the Jim Crow South.The eponymous young one is Evvie (Key Meersman) a teenage girl who's lived a quiet, isolated life on a coastal island with her grandfather. When the grandfather passes away she temporarily enters the custody of a cruel, bigoted caretaker named Miller (Zachary Scott) who is soon making advances towards her. Things get more complicated when an African American clarinet player named Traver (Bernie Hamilton) enters the picture fleeing a police manhunt that ensues when he's accused of raping a white woman. The screenplay by Hugo Butler, Luis Bunuel and Peter Matthiessen eschews stereotypes and the usual melodramatic clichés in favor of real, 3-dimensional characterizations and authentic human drama. Of course, I was familiar with Zachary Scott from earlier films where he famously played sophisticated heels. Here Scott does an excellent job with the difficult task of putting a human face on a despicable character. Likewise Bernie Hamilton, who's best known for a recurring role on the TV series Starsky and Hutch, is pitch-perfect as a musician who understands the forces arrayed against him but refuses to be a victim. I can't find much information about Key Meersman and it appears she only made a couple of films which is too bad because she was a gifted young actress. "The Young One" was a major work by a great director which sadly didn't get the respect it deserved from the establishment in 1960.

I have been looking for this film for some time, and it's everything I've waited for. For 1960, this film has some rather advanced themes. A black jazz musician named Traver winds up on an island used by a hunting resort. He has run away from a town after being accused of rape. The resort is kept by a middle-aged man named Miller and an older man who has just died leaving his granddaughter Evalyn (no older than 14). Traver finds the Miller's shack and takes some items. Miller wants to kill him, we assume for racial reasons. Miller is also in love with Evalyn, now in his care, and wants to make her a woman. This subplot is used through the eyes of two other characters who learn about Miller's relationship with Evalyn. You will notice quickly that one man, Jackson, wants to shoot and kill Traver for what others say he's done, and jokes with Miller about what he knows Miller's done. Statutory Rape is worse than rape, but to these people, black crimes are worse than white ones. Other reviewers seem not to pick up that Miller knows what he has done is wrong. He knows he is a worser man than Traver. After he finds out Traver left money for the stuff he stole, Miller no longer wants to kill him. Miller is not a racist man, any hatred for Traver that Miller has is spawned only from the fact that he's a stranger.

This film is the ultimate drifter film (under Tokyo Drifter)...like a Spaghetti Western or a Samaurai movie, it starts as the man drifts into this new environment and follows him till he leaves this environment. The film is book-ended with a great exterior scene with a compelling song playing about running away. Traver's name is short for Traveling Man, what better for a drifter?

As one of Bunuel's two English films, I wish Anchor Bay would pick this up and put it on DVD, or whoever distributed it if they still exist. Bunuel's attention to detail helps mix in some hidden undertones of prejudices. A clarinet called a 'Licorice Stick'. A priest offered a bed slept in by Traver asks how long Traver slept in it. "Only one night" the girl tells him. "It's okay, I'll just turn the mattress over." I'm frightened to even think what the character would have asked if Traver has stayed a week. Knowing Bunuel, the priest would probably say he'd just sleep on the floor after running to wash his hands.

Bunuel is no stranger to prejudices, see Exterminating Angel. As a window breaks, the host shrugs it off and says "probably a passing Jew". Generally he is so much harder on Catholics than anyone else, yet in this film, the priest is the only character that wasn't flawed. Obviously, I love this film, if you can find it, you must see it. The scenes between Traver and Miller have such style in their words, you'll like them both. Every exchange they have is so smooth, I can't believe that Bunuel didn't make more films in English.

RENT THIS FILM!!!!!!!

"The Young One" is a rare English-language enterprise for acclaimed director Luis Bunuel: a thoroughly perverse, unpleasant yet fascinating tale of corruption of innocence and racial prejudice. Bunuel, well-known as a provocateur, makes the black character (Bernie Hamilton, in a charismatic performance) the most positive one, and he takes advantage of Key Meersman's precocious, efortless eroticism (remember, this was made two years before Kubrick's "Lolita"). There is a great shot near the end of her playing hopscotch while wearing high heels which perfectly illustrates her duality - both a child and a woman. Terrific theme song, too. *** out of 4.

"Cela S'Appelle L'Aurore" (1955) :the priest ,in the luxury of the bourgeois house ,can do nothing for the poor proletarian who has lost house ,wife and job......

"La Mort En Ce Jardin"(1956) :in the first part,the priests sing "Alleluia" in their churches when the dictatorship kills outside.....Later the heroes lost in the jungle will light a fire ,with the pages of the Bible!

But It was "Nazarin"(1958) which must be considered Bunuel 's greatest achievement as far as this subject is concerned.The whole movie deals with the life and times of a priest ,at odds with his hierarchy ,who tries to live like a saint and who will only get a pineapple (sexual symbol) at the end of his pitiful adventure.

"The Young One" continued in that vein.Although the priest is absent in the first hour,it's him who finally invents right and wrong as a doctrinaire religion imposes them on (more or less) innocent characters. The scene when the girl wants to bury grandpa with a bottle whiskey has something of all the old ancient pagan religions.Isn't it better than a cross?

My favorite scene remains that of the baptism,the girl's so-called golden key.It's almost a comical scene as the priest washes the body in the water and takes away the young one's sin.

It' a golden key to a rotten world:the black man understood that a long time ago ,he does not expect anything anymore from the white justice: this is not the part of a black man you could see in Hollywoodian flicks in 1960,no Uncle Tom and no Sidney Poitier style either..

"The young one' is a good movie,but I would not rate it as high as "Viridiana" or "Nazarin" the two greatest Bunuel achievements of the 1955-1965 era.