Figure 1.--American clothing styles popular in the late 1960s such as black sneakers, stripped "T"-shirts and jeans, along with vintage cars and the inner city favorite before basketball became and all consuming favorite--stickball, are shown in "Sleepers".

A HBC readers tells us that American boys' clothing in the late 1960s and early 70s is illustrated in Sleepers. American clothing styles popular in the late 1960s such as black sneakers, stripped "T"-shirts and jeans, along with vintage cars featuring tail fins, are show cased. The fashion of never tucking in shirts and shirts made withoutvtails are also prominent. This provocative, rather unselling film is written and directed by Barry Levinson and set in New York. It is based on the best-selling book by Lorenzo Carcaterra. It tells the story of events which abruptly terminated the not to innocent, but certainly not terrible childhood of four boys, friends, wise mouths, and altar boys. The film plot describes the dreadful experiences of the boys after they run off with a hot dog venders cart. Of course many will see this as a a mischevious prank, for the vendor working hard to support his family it was no small matter. The boys are arrested and sentenced to a juvenile detention hall where they are terribly mistreated, beaten and assaulted by some of the guards. The film then flashes forward to their revenge which they reak on their abusers several years after their are released. The film is not very effectively narrated by one of the boys, Shakes (Jason Patric).

Created: March 29, 2001
Last updated: March 29, 2002