January 29, 2015 -- This documentary film, consisting of historical footage and re-enactments, narration and some inter titles, attempts, in a mere 80 minutes, to cover the history of youth culture over the years 1875-1945. The film is based on the book by Jon Savage “Teenage: The Prehistory of Youth Culture: 1875-1945.” The film succeeds in this task, but it is sketchy.

When I say “the end of child labor” I mean it hasn't entirely ended anywhere and it still thrives in places like India, but it was made illegal in most instances in most Western industrialized countries. Before it was outlawed, the film depicts children going to work in mines as young or 12 or 13. The argument made here is that there was no adolescence for some children. The transition went straight from childhood to adulthood in the days when child labor was prevalent. The film's emphasis is on boys working in factories, not on girls who get married at a very early age.

The film argues that the prevalence of modern industrialization led to laws against child labor. When youths no longer had to work because of increased worker productivity juvenile delinquency became a problem. A number of different approaches to destructive activity by juveniles were developed, including scouting. Robert Baden-Powell, a lieutenant general in the British Army, wrote the first Boy Scout book in 1908.

The movie argues that scouting organizations were originally military-style organizations and they served to help prepare scouts to be soldiers. One of the most notorious youth organizations along scouting lines was the Hitler Youth organization. The movie follows one member of the Hitler Youth, a girl, from the rise of the organization through the end of World War II. The film also follows the experiences of a black boy trying to find equality in the Boy Scouts.

Another way to get youths off the streets, away from alcohol and drugs, and out of trouble was the creation of youth activity centers, called dry night clubs or “teen canteens,” operated by teens. Youth organizations and teen activity centers are still with us. What is interesting is that these teen canteens were run by the teens themselves, according to the movie.

Parts of the film have narration read by actors (the best known of them is Jena Malone of “For Love of the Game”). It sounds like they are reading from letters or diaries of actual people, but I saw no citation for the source of this written material in the film's credits, making me wonder if these passages are fiction. In the press notes for the film I found these readings are from actual historical records. Rosemary Rotondi is credited with being the lead archival researcher for this kind of material used in the film.

Among these historical people who are portrayed in the film, and whose writings are heard in the film's narration include Melita Maschmann, of the Hitler Youth; Tommie Scheel, a German swing kid who defied the Nazis and paid the price, Warren Wall, an African American Boy Scout who sought equality before the modern civil rights era and Brenda Deen Paul, who, in the 1920s, foreshadowed celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian.

One document discussed in the movie was a New York Times article published January 7, 1945, shortly after the label “Teen-ager” was coined. The article is called “A 'Teen-Age Bill of Rights,” formulated by the Jewish Board of Guardians, which includes the right to develop one's own philosophy of life, to “have fun and companions” the right to “question ideas” and the right to be “at a romantic age.” These ideas are still around.

There is a lot of interesting stuff in the film, but it is just skimming the surface of a book of over 500 pages. The way the film comes across is that a lot of things are left out of it in favor of German Swing Kids and other things that seem to lack historical significance, but they have the benefit of being neglected by other movies. There is probably no other film that spends this much time on youths in Germany who rebelled against Hitler by dancing and listening to swing music.

This movie does have interesting snippets of history about people on society's fringes, especially people who were way ahead of their time in terms of youth culture. There are also some interesting historical tidbits like the Teenage Bill of Rights article, but if you want a better overview of this issue, you probably will have to read the book. This film rates a C.

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