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| {{Filmjr |title=Boy in Court |embid=0160_Boy_in_Court_02_26_25_00 |embsv=archiveorg |desc=Shows in detail the workings of the juvenile court when a boy is brought before it. Begins with the snatching of a car by young delinquents & follows them to the release of one of the boys, after a year's probation.
| | #REDIRECT [[Moving Image:Boy in court]] |
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| "What road lies ahead for this sullen, misguided 15-year-old? Can't something be done to help these twisted lives and set them straight?"
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| When Johnny Marvin gets collared for auto theft, his future is up for grabs. Boy in Court shows how his case is treated in a progressive city where juvenile courts and a probation service have been established.
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| Very much a product of the New Deal ethos, Boy in Court depicts civil authority through the social services that it supplies, delivered by compassionate, well-trained professionals. As in other films of this period like The City, it pits the future (as represented by aviation, the sky and technology) against the present, typified by slum housing, crowded rooms and crime.
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| At least in the unidentified city where Johnny resides, there are progressive alternatives to juvenile incarceration. But there's more than a hint of class condescension in the behavior and tone of the judge (who, until the film's end, is the only character that gets to speak in sync sound), welfare workers and probation officer. Their intervention in Johnny's life involves his whole family. People are brought in to fix up his home, and Johnny's P.O. even gets him to attend church again. The task of bridging the distance between the world of the Marvins and the middle-class professionals who are there to help them seems pretty easy.
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| Thanks to all the help he receives, Johnny makes good and is taken off probation. Speaking in sync for the first time, he sums up his past behavior: "Gee, that was really dumb, wasn't it?"
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| |forma=16mm |year=1940 |up=|next=|prev=|step= |lang=English |pbrs=Willard Pictures, Inc. |heldby=PA |len=10:15 |link= |bw= |ani= |ewid= }}
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