Truly Dreadful Film

A Disappointing Continuation

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

0001During the 1930s and into the 40s, MGM generally tried to paint a very rosy picture during the Depression. Additionally, Louis B. Mayer himself (the head of the studio) worked very hard to defeat the leftist, Upton Sinclair, during his attempt to win an election. Why? Because Mayer was dreadfully afraid of communism and socialism and fought hard to nip it in the bud. In light of this, how could a film like "We Who Are Young" get made? Could Mayer have missed this one? Surely he must, as it's progressive message clearly is NOT what 'Uncle' Louis wanted America to see!The plot of "We Who Are Young" is a lot like "The Crowd" and "Saturday's Children". The films are all about nice young folks who marry and try to grab a part of the American Dream but end up getting royally screwed. Again and again, things in the system seem to conspire against the couple as they try to just get by. At least that is the first 80% of the film--a strong Progressive message from the era...surprisingly strong. Unfortunately for the film, but perhaps fortunate for Mayer and his sentiments, the picture loses its way towards the end and degenerates too much towards sentimentality and lacks the hard edge you find in these other films. Overall, worth seeing but it just misses the mark. And, interestingly, although this is a Lana Turner starring vehicle, her co-star, John Shelton easily outshines her as the beleaguered husband.021

I saw this movie on TCM. Black and white, it is just under 90 minutes long. It's just a guess, but I think this movie was made to give young Lana Turner more exposure. She was a teenager during filming, either 18 or 19, and had a little voice with mannerisms similar to what we came to know as Marilyn Monroe a couple of decades later.Lana Turner is Marjorie 'Margy' White and she meets a nice young man, John Shelton as Bill Brooks. They fall in love and get married. Anxious to please his new wife, they buy new furniture for their small apartment. As a sign of the times, the total for several pieces of furniture was just over $200, which was a lot in 1940 and required Bill to get a short term loan.But this also leads to his troubles as Gene Lockhart, his very strict boss Carl B. Beamis, enforces very strict company rules. They don't think employees with debt can be good employees so Bill gets fired with 2 weeks' pay.So the drama heats up when Bill, unemployed and with no savings, finds out that Margy is pregnant.The dialog is often over-dramatic by today's standards, but maybe 70 years ago, just after the great depression and right before WW II, that is how things were. Just an interesting movie, but mostly for seeing the very young Lana Turner.

Dalton Trumbo, who wrote the script for this film, was one of the screenwriters blacklisted as a result of the Communist scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s. If you watch the movie with that in mind, you'll find fascinating the political sentiments he puts in the mouth of the protagonist (Shelton).It's not that the philosophy is Marxist, exactly, but it is certainly a left-wing view of working life. Shelton's antagonist, Bemis, expresses a very pure libertarian view--he got where he is though his own efforts alone, he never asked anyone for help, nor got help from any, and he's damn proud of it. He has contempt for "weaklings" who don't match his self-sufficiency.Shelton--Trumbo, that is--calls him out. He says that no one has ever done anything alone, he's always had help from the others around him and that people depend on each other for support and there's nothing wrong with that. Rules may be rules, but they must be administered with human kindness.We're still having the very same argument today, in almost the same words. I've found myself having identical discussions on Facebook and Reddit, and the libertarian view is alive and well. Interestingly, Trumbo makes some of the same points I have made in these discussions.Anyhow, there's a non-obvious deeper layer to this film that makes it interesting in today's political environment. It's worth seeing for that reason, if for no other.

This is a pretty hackneyed melodrama, obviously influenced by "The Crowd" though far inferior. Turner and Shelton play financially strapped newlyweds facing the perils of the Depression. The various crises and the final resolution are predictable and all of the characters are crude stereotypes, especially Gene Lockhart's tyrannical Mr Beamis. Shelton's performance is weak (he was dropped by MGM after this film), but Turner rises above the material and shows she's a star in the making.