The Young in Heart (1938)

A family of con artists accidentally work their best scam ever on themselves in this pleasantly fantastic (Life) romantic comedy! Starring Oscar® winner* Janet Gaynor and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Paulette Goddard The Young in Heart is an irresistible tale that s shot through with laughter (Variety)!The Carleton family will do anything for money except work. Taken in by a rich lonely old lady George-Anne Carleton (Gaynor) the savvy and cynical baby of the family hatches the perfect plan the Carletons will pretend to be the decent people their hostess is sure they are in the hopes that she ll rewrite her will in their favor! But there s just one flaw how long can you play a role before you actually become it?System Requirements: Running Time 91 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: BLUES/BLUES Rating: NR UPC: 027616903860 Manufacturer No: 1006184 Product Description

Very light comedy

This is what might be called a "light romance" and not a screwball comedy at all. It's about a family of con artists that goes straight after encountering a generous old lady. The casting is poor. (It was nearly Gaynor's last film, for obvious reasons. Richard Carlson is wasted entirely, and Fairbanks is wholly unconvincing.) There are no laughs. Some of the sets are incredibly phony. And in the end the director had to rely on a parade of pups to generate good feelings. In short, this is a time waster, alarmingly out of step with the great comedies being made at the time. It's hard to believe that Selznik could be so clueless. February 26, 2008

Pleasant Family Comedy About a Family of Crooks

THE YOUNG IN HEART is an unusual comedy from the 1930's. Produced by the legendary David O. Selznick, it's a warm-hearted picture of a family of con-men who worm their way into the good graces of an lonely elderly woman living on an estate in hopes of becoming her heirs. The movie is charming but I actually didn't find it that funny, yet it is very enjoyable. Character actress Minnie Dupree steals the show in a gentle, non-hammy performance as the lonely senior - incredibly, this is one of only four films she made, the other three being rather minor efforts.

Janet Gaynor and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. are the nominal stars of the picture as the children of Roland Young and Billie Burke, all of them experts in swindling. Gaynor and Fairbanks' scenes are so unusually playful one suspects their being siblings is just another con (it's not). Young and Burke are in fine form as the prententious father and dizzy mother ("Oh, my little girl has a birthday this year, too!"). Fairbanks is quite believable as a non-malicious cad but while I love Janet Gaynor and she's by far my favorite star of the cast, she is not very credibly cast as a professional crook, her natural sweetness and good nature just gets in the way although she does give a fine performance. I was most impressed with Richard Carlson (film debut) playing Janet's beau, the young American star speaks in a most credible Scottish brogue. This was also one of Paulette Goddard's first films - cast as Fairbanks' girl - she is third-billed but doesn't appear in the first 40 minutes of this 91 minute movie. This was Janet's last film as a star - she retired after it's release and returned to the screen only once in 1957 in a secondary role in a Pat Boone musical.

The movie is a bit on the cute side with puppies, penguins, and sweet old ladies but what's wrong with that? The print quality is excellent on this DVD. Also want to note Amazon shows the DVD cover as picturing Fairbanks and Paulette Goddard. Maybe somebody at MGM DVD didn't realize it wasn't Janet - this has apparently been corrected in later copies - my copy shows a picture of Janet in place of Paulette while Douglas remains where he was. March 20, 2006

A Delightful Charmer

This warm and delightful charmer might just be the best classic film you've probably never seen. Richard Wallace helmed this hilarious film based on the story "The Gay Banditti" by I.A.R. Wylie about a "family" of shallow scoundrels who find that pretending to be decent isn't really all that difficult. A sharp and funny screenplay by Paul Osborne and a playful score from Franz Waxman make this one of David O. Selznick's best productions. A 1930's cast that dreams are made of includes Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Janet Gaynor, Paulette Goddard, Richard Carlson, Roland Young, Billie Burke, Henry Stephenson, and Minnie Dupree as Miss Fortune.

Our group of rascals are on the French Riviera about to get rich when they are politely asked to get out of town by the police. Rick (Douglass Fairbanks Jr.) was about to marry rich and put the family in the black for life. His "sister" George-Anne (Janet Gaynor) had just discovered too late that her mark, Duncan Macrae (Richard Carlson), wasn't wealthy at all. He did give her a ring that has been held in his family for years, but she can't understand why thinking about him makes her cry. Rick is wide-eyed at her musings about people who actually marry for love, and in an hilarious moment in which she is trying to understand her melancholy, she tells Rick: "How can I be in love with him? He hasn't any money!"

Roland Young is the father, Sahib, who poses as a former Bengal Lancer, and Billie Burke is the mother, "Marmy." She can barely keep up with her husband's yarns of India, and at one point in the film tells a group that Rick and George-Anne were born there but she's never been, but would like to go one day!

Given train tickets to London just to get them off the Riviera, George-Anne is shocked to discover that Duncan, despite having been made aware of what they were doing, has followed her. He thinks she's not like the rest of her family and can be "cured" and she tries to convince him for the rest of the film that she's just as worthless as they are! Trying to lose him, George-Anne meets a kind, sweethearted but lonely old lady named, appropriately enough, Miss Fortune. She is looking for a family to love and when they discover she is wealthy, they warm up to her in a big hurry.

George-Anne and Rick save her life when the train wrecks and soon they are all staying in her huge home, "working" her until she changes her will and they are set for life. George-Anne has gone a bit soft though, and as the others take--gulp--jobs, so they can pretend to be normal people, they slowly discover that they really want to be what the kind Miss Fortune (Minnie Dupree) thinks they are.

Duncan, still trying to win over George-Anne, gets Sahib a job selling cars. He tries to refuse it in a very funny scene but George-Anne forces him to accept the offer. Since it's pretty much the same thing as a con, he is so successful at it he becomes the head of the London branch! The very fast car he sells is called The Flying Wombat!

Rick, meanwhile, discovers the pretty Leslie Saunders (Paulette Goddard) and charms her into giving him a job as a mail sorter. She begins to wear on him and he starts reading about engineering. When he is honest with her about what he and his family are doing, she is disturbed by his seeming lack of regret for how they are using Miss Fortune. Leslie isn't quite sure it's all an act, however, and she may be right.

Miss Fortune has grown on all of them and Rick begins to wonder if they've actually become decent people and are no longer just pretending. When Miss Fortune has a serious spell and it is discovered she may not have her wealth anymore, the truth might just come out.

Fairbanks and Gaynor are wonderful here, and would stand out even more were it not for the equally endearing performances from the rest of the cast. This is a fabulous classic with a very special mood. It is sweet, hilarious, sentimental, and full to the brim with charm. I can't recommend this film any higher or I would. This is not a rental. This is a sparkling diamond every film buff must own, so it will be close at hand to watch over and over. August 22, 2005

YOUNG IN HEART PRETTY SPIFFY LOOKING ON DVD!

In "Young in Heart" Miss Ellen Fortune (Minnie Dupree) is a painfully lonely elderly woman, traveling on a European train. She meets the rather roguish, wholly unusual Carlton family; George-Anne (Janet Gaynor), Richard (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), Leslie (Paulette Goddard), Col. Anthony (Roland Young) and Marmy (Billie Burke); a rambunctious pack of congenial connivers. Recently deposed from their perch on the Riviera, the Carlton's decide that Ellen is just such a wealthy fop, ripe for their picking. Ellen, however, is not as easily cajoled out of her savings. Forced to regroup their efforts, the con-artists are delivered into unfamiliar territory before getting their way; they're going to have to work for it! Richard Wallace's direction allows for just the right amount of is sensitivity and humor to prevail in a film that provides heart-warming results. After an unfavorable preview, "Young at Heart" had its downtrodden ending revamped: the result; two Academy Award nominations and a fun-loving frolic for all time.

MGM's DVD is rather impressive. The B&W picture exhibits a very nicely balanced gray scale with smooth, solid blacks and very clean whites. Age related artifacts are present throughout but do not distract. Some minor edge enhancement crops up but pixelization is kept to a minimum. Overall the picture will surely not disappoint. The audio is mono but more than adequate for a film of this vintage. There are no extras.
October 21, 2004

A THIRTIES DELIGHT.

A wonderfully told story has Dupree (as Miss Fortune!) playing an elderly woman who is painfully lonely. While traveling on a European train, she meets a rather unusual family of charming connivers. They've just been kicked out of the Riviera, and see this rich, lonely old woman as their next meal ticket...Dupree, however, isn't the easy pushover the con artists were hoping for, and they learn about a little thing called w-o-r-k. The story is told with sensitivity and the right amount of humour: the results are charming & heart-warming. The original ending had Miss Fortune dying, but this proved unfavourable to preview audiences, so the cast was called back to film a more upbeat, happier ending. The photography and music are both excellent and garnered AA nominations. August 31, 2002

More reviews at Amazon.com ...