by Hal Erickson
synopsis
Boys' Ranch was conceived as a showcase for MGM's newest juvenile star, Jackie "Butch" Jenkins. James Craig is billed second as baseball player Dan Walker, who sets up a Texas ranch for disadvantaged city kids. Jenkins plays Butch, the cutest and most precocious of the boys, while Skip Homeier is Skippy, an unregenerate juvenile delinquent who thinks that Walker's ranch is for "suckers". Eventually, Homeier is won over, but only after a series of intense dramatic complications. MGM had done variations of this story several times before, in such films as Boys Town and Lord Jeff, but audiences never seemed to tire of the formula. Boys Ranch was filmed on location at a real-life boys' ranch near Amarillo, Texas.
characteristics
- Delinquency
- Delinquent
- Ranch
- Reformation
- Reform [improve]
- Parole
- Juvenile
- Exercise
- Farm
