Today hardly anyone can view this movie unprejudiced. But, paradoxically, it may even benefit the final impression it leaves: when you initially expect the worst, and it turns out not that bad, the impression is in the end much more favourable, than if there were any expectations the film couldn't live up to. This sounds like a truism, but can be a useful tip on how to view this movie. Certainly it would be ridiculous to expect political correctness or an in-depth and realistic study of homosexuality from a movie released in 1957. Yet it seems to be exactly the approach all the users who gave a 'one' had (or they just voted without seeing the movie). Neither did I share this kind of approach, nor intend on rating the director's personality and his ethical or political choices instead of the film. The result was that the latter pleasantly surprised me, turning out better than expected - and not only content-wise. One of the previous reviewers has already mentioned the important difference the deleted scenes make. But even in the edited version the only blatantly homophobic character is Klaus's father (You can also count schoolboys bullying Manfred in, but they appear only briefly and it can hardly be said they are portrayed in a positive light). All the others appear rather indifferent and mostly they even try to cool his zeal - even Klaus's uncle, whom, an aged bourgeois family-man just like Teichmann, you would naturally expect to be as narrow-minded and bigoted as his brother-in-law. The mother appears to an extent instrumental - initially she is far from suspicious, but gets too impressed by her husbands alarms. Of the edited scenes, only the first one, a discussion on homosexuality between two doctors at what appears as a TV-show, could actually have made the film look more homophobic - and it's an exception. Besides the already described 'It's fate' scene with Manfred's mother, there's a really interesting scene in which Dr. Winkler talks with his gay lawyer, who refuses to back him, upon hearing that he had actually seduced an underage boy. This scene also explains the subtitle '(Paragraph 175)' - as Winkler retorts nihilistically that, regardless of their conduct, they both are criminals for society. The lawyer advises a monogamous relationship to him as an only moral and 'respectable' mode of sexual life - Winkler laughs and compares him to a priest in response. If the scene wasn't cut, the lawyer would arguably be the second wholesome gay character in the film, furthermore, making a point of separating homosexuality from pedophilia and promiscuity - while even today now and then we encounter the attempts to blur this distinction. The following edited scenes include Winkler's foreign friend's mention of the more lenient attitude to homosexuality in other European countries and the officer confiding to Teichmann that the gay bars are permitted and monitored by the police. it could be this that was seen as 'advertising' homosexuality. The edited scenes also add some definitiveness to the relationship between young heroes: Manfred's jealousy, not only towards the girl, but to Winkler also is emphasized, and his grief about parting with his friend - 'And me? Who have I got? No Boris and no Klaus!'. All in all, the movie would have benefited if all of them (except the first one) weren't edited out. The most homophobic about the content of the film is the idea that homosexuality is not innate, but a result of some deviation in development - throughout the movie this idea isn't explicitly contested. In one of his letters, found in the booklet with other documents, Harlan, as far as my command of German lets me understand, differentiates between 'natural' homosexuals and those giving in to weakness, lasciviousness or desire for profit. The first kind, that he calls 'sexual cripples', deserves sympathy in his opinion, and in general homosexuals are not to be prosecuted, except for seducing 'normal' young men. He even states that said sympathy should be promoted by the film. Still he sounds rather evasive. Consider for a moment that in America even this kind of a movie on homosexuality wouldn't be possible at the time - not with the production Code! And in this 'fascist' German movie we get a handsome lead, his friend Klaus, who is also pretty, and, despite a certain amount of touchiness and sickliness, still isn't portrayed as completely worthless and has a loving mother who fully accepts him the way he is. And... what looks like no less but in some sense a full reversal of the infamous Wilde vs Queensberry and Crown vs Wilde cases (by the way, in the unedited version the mother gets imprisoned, not put on probation). If not in its own right, this film can still be highly interesting as a rarity and a curious artifact from the pre-history of queer cinema.
Review of Bewildered Youth
