With Lancaster in the picture, "The Young Savages" headed in a new direction. Hecht hired J.P. Miller, who had worked on "The Rabbit Trap" and had since been nominated for an Emmy Award, and Edward Anhalt, a two-time Academy Award nominee who had won a Best Screenplay Oscar for the 1951 film "Panic in the Streets", to rewrite the script. Meanwhile, Lancaster approached respected young television director John Frankenheimer who had already done a low-budget picture, "The Young Stranger", a few years prior but "The Young Savages" has since been considered by most as his true film debut. Lancaster and Frankenheimer would make a total of five films together. In turn, Frankenheimer hired another television acquaintance, the promising young actor Sydney Pollack, as a dialogue coach for the teenage hoodlums who needed an authentic New York City accents. "The Young Savages" was partly filmed on location in New York City with three-time Academy Award nominated cinematographer Lionel Lindon. Lindon had won an Oscar in 1957 for his work on "Around the World in Eighty Days". The cast featured Shelley Winters, who had just won an Oscar for "The Diary of Anne Frank", Edward Andrews, who had just made "Elmer Gantry" with Lancaster and Dina Merrill, who had just finished Blake Edwards' "Operation Petticoat" with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. Telly Savalas made his film debut playing the role of a tough cop, not unlike his future TV character in "Kojak". "The Young Savages" was released in the spring of 1961 through United Artists, but unfortunately was not the success that Hecht had anticipated.