Incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich believes we can learn a lot from the movies -- like how to reform the welfare system.
Build orphanages, he says. Many children of single welfare mothers would be better off in state-run orphanages or boarding schools, Mr. Gingrich says. And anyone who disagrees -- like first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton -- ought to rent "Boys Town," the 1938 film starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney that dramatized the founding of the famous Nebraska home for wayward boys.
His comment about "Boys Town," made Sunday during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," was seized upon by critics as a sign of just how little Mr. Gingrich understands about the problems of poor children.
"It's ridiculous, that idea," says Camille Wheeler, Baltimore County's director of social services. "Honestly. It's nonsense."
But we decided to take Mr. Gingrich up on his suggestion and headed to Blockbuster to rent "Boys Town." And here's what we learned for our $3.25 rental fee:
* Spencer Tracy became a better actor with age. His Father Edward Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town, is a benevolent but forceful presence -- you could almost believe a boy would turn good just to avoid disappointing him. But Tracy's performances with Katharine Hepburn in "Adam's Rib" and "Woman of the Year" are far more polished.
* Mickey Rooney, who plays the juvenile delinquent Whitey Marsh, could overact shamelessly. He was much better in those musicals with Judy Garland.
* Nothing makes you cry like a melodrama from MGM's golden age. When little Pee Wee got knocked down by that car, we couldn't grab Kleenex fast enough.
* All it takes to turn a kid around is love, a good rap on the knuckles and the humbling experience of losing a boxing match to your worst enemy.
Mickey Rooney, for one, thinks Mr. Gingrich is on to something. "I do live by the code that Father Flanagan lived by, that there is no such thing as a bad boy," Mr. Rooney, 74, said over the phone from Branson, Mo., where he's putting on a one-man variety show twice daily. "We should have 50 boys and girls towns throughout the nation. I think that would go a long way to conquer gangs and youthful crime."
Many people who work in the social service field disagree.
Orphanages -- even those run by Spencer Tracy -- are no better than a small part of the answer, they say. And expecting a 1930s tear-jerker to solve society's ills seems, at best, ill-advised.
"You're looking at a different age, different societal issues and pressures that quite frankly weren't even thought of when Boys Town was founded," says George T. Hudgens, executive director of the Charles Hickey School. "From idealism to reality, it's a long road."
Adds Susan Leviton, a professor at the University of Maryland school of law and founder of Advocates for Children and Youth, "Anyone who thinks that 'Boys Town' is the answer for all children and all families is sadly mistaken. You don't get prizes for thinking like that."
Even the folks at Boys Town admit the film has little to do with 1994. Boys Town is now co-ed. It operates at 16 sites throughout the United States. And since the early 1970s, it has eschewed the orphanage approach in favor of family-style group homes headed by husband-and-wife staffers.
"It's not just putting kids up in dormitories and giving them love," says Randy Blauvelt, Boys Town's director of public relations.
Watching "Boys Town," says Father Val J. Peter, the organization's executive director, people "would get a good idea of the warmth, the love and the care that epitomizes Father Flanagan, and that is still here. They would get a bad idea of what Boys Town looks like and what it does today."
Many of the youths who find their way into group homes and youth facilities these days are no doubt a lot more hardened -- and dangerous -- than Mickey Rooney. His Whitey Marsh is so nasty that not even Boys Town can turn him around. That changes, however, when Whitey sees that his evil ways could force Father Flanagan to shut down.
But Spencer Tracy's kindly approach might not work as easily on a child who has seen his playmates killed, or who runs drugs for a living, or who carries a gun the way Whitey Marsh carried cigarettes.
Besides, if anyone wants to learn about orphanages from the movies, what's to stop them from watching "Oliver!" (where street-smart urchins are fed gruel and break into song while stealing wallets)?
"For every complex problem, there is a simple solution, and it is always wrong," says Father Peter. "Bringing back the orphanages is a simple solution, and it's wrong."