Post by rmichaelpyle on Mar 5, 2012 14:47:58 GMT -6
I watched "The Truth About Youth" (1930) with Conway Tearle, Loretta Young, David Manners, Myrna Loy, J. Farrell MacDonald, Harry Stubbs, and Myrtle Stedman. This is an interesting little Pre-Coder, although many today will find certain plot elements a little unnerving, such as Loretta Young's hankering after the man who raised her, a man at least twenty five years older than she. He's not her father, but he may as well be. She's also the housekeeper's daughter, and now - at the beginning of the film - she's engaged to be married to the "son" of the man she loves. I put 'son' in quotes, because Conway Tearle raised this boy, too - after the death of the boy's father, a good friend of Tearle's. There's almost an incestuous feeling about the film - by today's standards. There possibly was at the time of the film's release, too, giving it the 'edge' it needed as a Pre-Code.
David Manners plays the kid Loretta Young's engaged to; and he's just turned twenty-one and having a fling with a barfly's barfly - Myrna Loy! Bad, bad Myrna Loy! She steals the kid because she thinks he's got scads of money. He has none. They get married. She finds out he has no money. She throws him over. Loretta gets her man. David's out of luck. But...but...the best line is saved for last - no, the last two lines - first from J. Farrell MacDonald, then Harry Stubbs. I'll leave it to you to watch the show to hear them. The whole show's worth watching just for the last two definitely Pre-Code lines!
Decent. Small show, but very watchable. On a DVD from Warner Archive Collection with "The Right of Way", a film that you needn't watch, it's so bad. But this one's just ducky.
David Manners plays the kid Loretta Young's engaged to; and he's just turned twenty-one and having a fling with a barfly's barfly - Myrna Loy! Bad, bad Myrna Loy! She steals the kid because she thinks he's got scads of money. He has none. They get married. She finds out he has no money. She throws him over. Loretta gets her man. David's out of luck. But...but...the best line is saved for last - no, the last two lines - first from J. Farrell MacDonald, then Harry Stubbs. I'll leave it to you to watch the show to hear them. The whole show's worth watching just for the last two definitely Pre-Code lines!
Decent. Small show, but very watchable. On a DVD from Warner Archive Collection with "The Right of Way", a film that you needn't watch, it's so bad. But this one's just ducky.