Dino

This is one of several teleplays from "Westinghouse Theater" that were released on DVD. These live-action one-hour plays were written for TV and featured, in many cases, big-name movie actors. The episodes that have survived were copied using the Kinescope process--resulting in grainy but very watchable programs.

This particular program features Sal Mineo as the title character. Evidently, he'd been in a reform school for four and a half years due to his participation in a gang murder. The film takes place at his release--showing him meeting with his psychiatrist, rejoining his family and going about his routine to reintroduce him to society.

This sort of plot is not at all surprising, as Mineo played a similar sort of character the year before in "Rebel Without a Cause". However, it is NOT so similar that it's just a rehash. Instead, it's an interesting and well-meaning bit of social commentary that is actually amazingly well acted--and it's not too surprising that Mineo earned an Emmy Award for this performance. While Ralph Meeker's psychiatrist is a bit too talkative (a common problem with therapists portrayed in films and TV), but he's also pretty good. While this is not among the best of the teleplays of the 1950s, it is darn close--and it makes for a very compelling piece.

I never really cared much for Sal Mineo as I was growing up with my friends in Union City at Emerson. We all called him "Baby Marlon" as he always seemed to be imitating Marlon Brando. But this production of Dino by Studio One was a real eye-opener for me. It showed the great intensity that Mineo was able to put into his role. It was quite unfortunate that Mineo had less than a stellar career considered his fine acting talent. Be sure to catch this one on Studio One as a teen coming of age with a basket of rage.

Sal Mineo was born in 1939, and in 1956 was the right age for the Studio One original of "Dino." (also written by Reginal Rose, directed by Paul Nickell). He had a lot of emoting to do, wound up very tight from surviving reform school (where he was placed at the age of twelve) and a brutish father (Rudy Bond). A year after "Rebel without a Cause," for which Mineo received an Oscar nomination, he took on a role more like that James Dean played than the one he had played, with Pat DeSimone being the younger boy looking up to Mineo's Dino. Also, Dino connected with a girl, albeit Toni Halloran was considerably less glamorous than Natalie Wood. Ralph Meeker played the therapist Dino resists. The teleplay is quite upbeat, for all the stürm und drang of the needy but prickly parolee.

Mineo was nominated for an Emmy and reprised the role in a 1957 movie version with Brian Keith as the therapist and DeSimone reprising the role of the younger brother and gang member.