Most importantly, the film emphasizes the terrible consequences for the parents and sister of the son - sixteen year old Frank - who engages in acts which are initially thoughtless and finally criminal.

City Across the River highlights Frank's parents' contention that a good education for their children is the best way to lift the next generation from a sordid and dangerous environment.

It is rich in character delineation, especially in minor roles, and there is a coarse, natural tang to much of the writing by Director-Producer Maxwell Shane and his co-scenarist, Dennis Cooper.

Most of the players are comparatively unfamiliar, with the exception of Stephen McNally, who plays the role of a community center director in the neighborhood, and this gives the film an added degree of realism.

"[7] Film critic Dennis Schwartz questioned the honesty of the screenplay: "This is a much softened version of Irving Schulman's The Amboy Dukes, a book about a rough gang of teenagers in the postwar [sic] period of Brooklyn ...

All the gang members are stock characters and the predictable story sheds little insight about juvenile delinquency, offering only an outsider's look into the grimness of street life ...