THE BOSTON TRILOGY
BILLY IN THE LOWLANDS
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The odyssey of a young man in trouble with the law, Billy in the Lowlands stars Henry Tomaszewski as Billy Shaughnessy, a working-class project kid trying to make a place for himself in the world. After being sent away to a Massachusetts reformatory, Billy breaks out in hopes of reestablishing a relationship with his distant father. A fiction film drawn from real-life events and experiences, the cast includes both professional and nonprofessional actors. The late Vincent Canby found in this work "unexpected resources of compassion and humor and, more important, of unsentimental honesty."
THE DARK END OF THE STREET
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A compelling depiction of race relations, The Dark End of the Street is a coming-of-age story set in a North Cambridge housing project. When a black youth falls off a building roof, the only witnesses are a white teenage couple. The girl's impulse is to go to the authorities, but her boyfriend-who has already done time-advises her to keep quiet. As a result, another black youth is suspected of the "crime," and a number of suppressed tensions explode into the open. With a cast culled largely from the projects, and a bare-bones budget, The Dark End of the Street represents regional independent filmmaking at its purest and an embodiment of the working-class concerns it addresses.
THE LITTLE SISTER
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The final film of Jan Egleson's trilogy, The Little Sister continues to explore the lives of Boston street kids. The story focuses on Nicki (Pollan), a well-to-do eighteen-year-old girl from the suburbs whose self-destructive behavior leads her into Boston's once-infamous Combat Zone. On her downward spiral she is aided by a probation officer (Savage), whose interest in Nicki's case borders on obsession. A complexly drawn portrait of sexual abuse, The Tender Age boasts an original score by Pat Metheny and striking cinematography by Edward Lachman. Music composed and performed by Pat Metheny.