DELANCEY STREET – THE CRISIS WITHIN
US, 1975, 90 minutes, Colour.
Walter Mc Ginn, Carmine Caride, Michael Conrad, Louis Gossett Jr, Mark Hamill, Barbara Bostock.
Directed by James Frawley.
Delancey Street: The Crisis Within is an almost documentary-style treatment of the Delancey Street Foundation in San Francisco. It was a self-help group, flourishing in the 1970s, with an outreach to former addicts, former prisoners and others on the margins of society.
Walter Mc Ginn plays John Mc Cann, a former prisoner who sets up the Delancey Street Foundation. Louis Gossett Jr and Mark Hamill (two years before Star Wars) are in the supporting cast.
This is an earnest kind of film, a strong presentation of characters and social situations – and is interesting to see in retrospect for the way that films handled awareness of problem situations in society during the 1970s.
1. How interesting a film, documentary overtones, based on a true story? How much to be learnt, exploration of values in modern society? A didactic film?
2. The documentary overtones and styles? The blend with characterizations and fiction? The significance of the title, the place, the nature of the crises? Were these well documented or presented melodramatically?
3. The qualities of the film as a telemovie, colour, San Francisco locations, the institute itself? The atmosphere of the streets and the buildings where crimes were committed and criminals formed?
4. The credibility of the plot with the presentation of Mc Cann and his background as a criminal, the setting up of Delancey Street as a half-way house, the staff, the crises, the clashes of human nature, the types of ex-criminals that went there? The melodramatic crises, their giving up of hope, the build-up to some kind of future?
5. Mc Cann and his background, the setting up of the half-way house, his communication with people, his hopes with the 54-year-old ex-convict, with the young man? With James? Joe? How well did the film illustrate each of these characters, their crimes, effect of prison, their backgrounds, crises and temptations? Mc Cann and his ability to hold them together, his techniques, his despair?
6. The focus on the old man coming out of prison at the beginning, indication to audiences about prison, people's attitudes towards criminals, hopes for the future? The man and his bond with Phillip? The fact that he would save him during the sniping incident? Phillip and his seeming hopelessness, what he had learnt from the older man, the reason for his berserk crisis and his giving in?
7. The minor characters and their portrayal and their crises?
8. The overall impact on Mc Cann and his wanting to give up? What persuaded him to continue?
9. Themes of human nature, resilience, optimism and pessimism? Service? In this kind of brief telemovie helpful for home audiences to understand criminals, the need for humane rehabilitation?
