YOUNG AT HEART
US, 1954, 117 minutes, Colour.
Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Ethel Barrymore, Gig Young, Dorothy Malone, Robert Keith.
Directed by Gordon Douglas.
Young at Heart was Doris Day's last film at Warner Brothers before she embarked on a wider and very successful career with Love Me or Leave Me, The Man Who Knew Too Much and the romantic comedies and dramas of the late fifties and sixties. Here she is teamed quite effectively with Frank Sinatra in the period just after his Oscar win in From Here TP Eternity. Gig Young, Ethel Barrymore and Dorothy Malone provide very effective and strong support in this semi-musical drama which was a remake of Four Daughters starring Claude Rains and the Lane Sisters in the late thirties.
Frank Sinatra takes the 'angry young man' role created by John Garfield. The original film had several sequels. This film stands on its own as a pleasant and eventually optimistic piece of Americana. Gordon Douglas, a director of conventional westerns and action films, directed. He worked with Frank Sinatra many times, especially in the late sixties in his Tony Rome series and The Detective. Young at Heart is tearful, efficiently made musical drama.
1. An enjoyable musical? Piece of Americana? The origins in popular Fanny Hurst soap opera?
2. The style of the fifties in the film-making, style, treatment of American themes, family, romance? Sentiment? Impact now?
3. Colour, music, songs? The re-creation of the home, life on the road?
4. How we11 did the team of Frank Sinatra and Doris Day work? The quality of the two performers and their meshing together?
5. The portrait of small town life, at home, people at work, romance, preparations for marriages, disappointments? The film's attention to detail in the day-to-day life of home life?
6. The portrait of the Tuttle household: Laurie and her vitality, Fran and her ambitions, Amy as young and impressionable? The girls' father and his hold over them, their love for him, his words of advice, his understanding them? The music that bound them together? Aunt Jessie and tough-minded sentimentality, support, comfort and advice?
7. The arrival of Alex in the home and the change that took place? What kind of a person was Alex, his work, music? Friendship with Barney and bringing him into the house? Laurie and her engagement to Alex? Amy and her crush on him? Her hopes and her disappointment? his reaction to being jilted, by Laurie? his later success and coping with the disappointments in love?
8. The bonds between Laurie and Alex? The arrival of Barney and his offhand manner and changing things? Laurie's motives for marrying Barney? Amy's disappointment, feeling sorry for Barney? The scenes of their early married life? Disappointments, lack of work? Laurie trying to make the marriage work? The comparison with her other sisters' marriages? Fran and society and status and wealth, the lack of love? Amy and her forgetting Ales and marrying?
9. The portrait of Barney as cynic, disappointed? His musical talent? His finding work, failing? The clashes with Laurie, love? The advice from Aunt Jessie and the sparring with her verbally?
10. The effect of marriage on Barney, his self-pity, losing streak, finding life hard, not wanting to hurt Laurie? His songs? The impact of the attempted suicide?
11. The suicide crisis and the discovery of truth by Laurie, when she thought it was her husband? The reconciliation?
12. An appropriate happy ending for this kind of romance? A presentation of taken-for-granted American attitudes of the past?
