The inspirational Boys Town starred Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan, the real-life figure who rehabilitated thousands of delinquent youths at his facility near Omaha, Neb. In the 1938 film, Mickey Rooney played Whitey Marsh, a hard-bitten delinquent who becomes a cherub under the patient care of Flanagan.
"There seems to be some romanticizing about orphanages these days," says Joan Reeves, commissioner of Philadelphia's Department of Human Services. "I remember Boys Town. I liked the movie. I cried a lot. But I don't look to movies for help in solving social problems."
"Doesn't Gingrich know that the Boys Town of today is nothing like the Boys Town of yesterday - and neither are the boys?" asked Frank Cervone, executive director of Philadelphia's Support Center for Child Advocates, which represents abused and neglected children.
"The actual functioning of the place is quite different from the 1938 film," said Randy Blauvelt, public relations director of Boys Town, which has been "besieged by the media" since Gingrich's statement.
Much of the film - and its 1941 sequel, Men of Boys Town - was shot on site and depicts the large, institutional setting typical of the era's social- service agencies.
"Today, instead of the dormitory and mess halls," said Blauvelt, "we have individual family homes where married couples live with between six and eight kids. The unit functions as a surrogate family. Kids go to school, do household chores, participate in group activities."
What's more, half of the 500 residents at the 77-year-old Boys Town are girls - a change that probably won't be reflected in a planned sequel to the classic film, titled He Ain't Heavy. (Rooney has been cast in the Flanagan role, for which Tracy won an Oscar.)
When he visited Philadelphia in 1939, the sainted Father Flanagan prophetically warned of the greatest menace to programs such as Boys Town. ''Politics, politics," Father Flanagan sputtered to a Philadelphia Record reporter. "It always gets in the way."
Today, Boys Town's Blauvelt is more philosophical. "While we're delighted to have our name mentioned by a prominent Republican . . . we like to think that the concept of Boys Town enjoys bipartisan support."
