The Young One (Directors Suite) (1960)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Booklet-The Young One: Bunuel's Neglected Masterpiece Trailer-Four Directors Suite Trailers
Rating
Year Of Production	1960
Running Time	91:39 (Case: 96)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (68:54)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Luis Buņuel
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Zachary Scott Bernie Hamilton Key Meersman Crahan Denton Claudio Brook
Case	Alpha-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The Young One (or White trash in the United States or Island of Shame in the United Kingdom) is one of only two films made by Luis Bunuel in English, the other being The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe made in 1952. Both films share the distinction of being Mexican productions, films made to make Bunuel known in the United States. The Young One (La Joven in Spanish) is confronting in its themes of social justice, treatment of innocent people, prejudice and racism and for this reason it failed at the US box office in 1960. American audiences just couldn't sympathise with Bunuel's social criticism of the treatment of people judged inferior, such as Bernie Hamilton's Traver who is a black man escaping a false charge or Key Meersman's Evalyn who is a 13 year-old girl left in the care of Miller, played by Zachary Scott, after Evalyn's grandfather and handyman for Miller who is a game warden on an island off the American coastline.

    If you compare the reaction to Bunuel's film made in 1961, Viridiana, in Spain, with similar social criticisms against authoritative figures and judgment of inferior people in society, you could deduce that Viridiana lives on in cinematic history because it is much more visually and metaphorically confronting then The Young One. Also, audiences in Spain, and especially in France, could sympathise with the criticisms made in Viridiana. In The Young One, each main character is presented with flaws and virtues, Bunuel seems to be judging the situation these characters find themselves in, not the characters themselves and frankly American audiences in 1960 would not have been able to empathise with this scenario.

    Jonathan Rosenbaum writes an interesting essay on why this film is a neglected masterpiece in the 16 page booklet included with the DVD. Luis Bunuel was not a recognised auteur at this stage in his career, did that have something to do with it? I would reply by asking what about Los Olvidados? The Young One is not a trademark Bunuel film replete with surrealist metaphoric undertones, so don't view this film thinking that is has been made in that style. Instead, it is a clever criticism of late 1950s/early 1960s American society that deserves to be looked at afresh on its own merits.

Video

    The video transfer of The Young One is pristine, the film looks stunning for its age.

    The aspect ratio is 1:85:1. It is 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions.

    The film is sharp, the transfer is clean, there is no grain evident. This is mainly because the film's average bitrate is 7.97 m/b per sec.

    Gabriel Figueroa shot The Young One in glorious black and white, the contrast and tones of the cinematography is distinctive.

    There are practically no film artefacts evident in the video transfer.

    Unfortunately, no subtitles have been included with this release of the film in Region 4.

    The RSDL change occurs at 68:54

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Claudio Brook (as Reverend Fleetwood) was the only non-American used in the principal cast. Even so, you can easily tell that his dialogue has been dubbed into English in post-production.

    There is one main audio track in English. It is encoded in Dolby Digital 2.0 at 224 kbps.

    Dialogue is not always synchronised in this film, but it is not too distracting overall.

    The music consists of one song which bookends the film, "Sinner Man" by Leon Beeb. Bunuel did not like non-diagetic music (music that comes from a source off-screen) in his films, with some of his films he made having no soundtrack whatsoever!

    There is no surround channel usage.

    The subwoofer is not utilised either in the main soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

16-page Booklet by Jonathan Rosenbaum

Four Directors Suite Trailers

    The Young One has been included as a double feature with Gran Casino in Region 1 in the United States. This version of the film has a similar clean transfer, although it is only presented on a single-layered disc. The audio is clear and it includes a subtitle track in English and Spanish. Peter Evans and Isabel Santaolalla provide an academic commentary on the film. The only criticism of this Region 1 version of the film is the fact that the Region 1 double feature has the names of the film mislabelled on both sides! Otherwise, The Region 1 version of The Young One is only slightly better than the Region 4, which is still a quality DVD presentation by Madman Entertainment's label, Director's Suite.

    The Young One has finally been released on DVD by itself, on it's own merits. How does it compare other Bunuel films? It is not a metaphoric criticism of societal relations for it's time. So, please judge The Young One on it's own merits, you may be genuinely surprised!

    The video transfer is stunning, the audio transfer is very good also.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall