The Truth About Youth (1930)

The Truth About Youth is a 1930 pre-code offering from First National Pictures. It’s notable for including both Loretta Young and Myrna Loy in its cast - I just love watching these two ladies in their pre-code films.

Richard Carewe (Conway Tearle) has raised the son of a deceased friend as his own son. This is where this movie can get a bit confusing, since the young man’s name is Richard Dane (he’s played by David Manners) and both these characters are referred to throughout the movie as Dick. Richard Dane also goes by the nickname Imp. In order to make things less confusing I will in the rest of this review refer to Richard Carewe as Richard and I will refer to the younger man as Imp. The fact that both men are named Richard will however become a plot point later on.

In raising the boy Richard has had help from various cronies (who are apparently the Imp’s joint guardians) and from his housekeeper, and also from the housekeeper’s lovely daughter Phyllis Ericson (Loretta Young).

It has always been assumed that the Imp will marry Phyllis. She is a sweet girl and thoroughly respectable. They seem to get along. Maybe they’re not wildly passionately in love but they have come to share that assumption that they will marry.

The worthies who have superintended the Imp’s upbringing have planned a surprise party for his twenty-first birthday. They patiently await the young man’s arrival but he does not return home until very very late. His excuse is that he had to attend a lecture. In fact Imp was pursuing a firefly. The firefly in question is Kara (Myrna Loy). She is a sexy night-club singer and dancer who is billed as The Firefly.

Imp is madly in love with Kara. He wants to marry her. Kara is madly in love with Imp’s money. What she doesn’t know is that Imp doesn’t actually have any money. Kara is going to be more than a little bit disappointed when she finds out.

Kara is by no means opposed to the idea of marriage but she simply cannot conceive of the idea of marrying a man who isn’t exceedingly rich.

Things start to get complicated, partly due to the fact that Richard Carewe and the Imp are both named Richard. There are wedding plans. There are misunderstandings. There are broken hearts. Richard Carewe decides to meddle and simply ends up making things more complicated.

The Truth About Youth is not a comedy but it’s by no means grim. It has some elements that we would associate with pre-code sex comedies and some elements more associated with melodrama. One of the things I love about the pre-code era is that genres had not yet solidified.

Conway Tearle as Richard Carewe is very dull but then the character he is playing is a very conventional man who takes life terribly seriously. He thinks a lot about duty.

David Manners is OK as the Imp. He is after all playing a young man who is a bit of an innocent and Manners gets that across. The Imp has had a sheltered upbringing and is wholly unequipped to resist Kara’s brazen sexual allure.

The acting honours definitely go to the women. Loretta Young has the more thankless role as the good girl but her performance is lively and charming. And she’s as cute as a button. Miss Young’s vivaciousness works in the movie’s favour - she’s delightful enough to seem like a serious rival to Kara for a man’s affections.

Myrna Loy got the plum bad girl role and obviously relished it. She could be very sexy indeed in her pre-code films. Kara is a very bad girl. She’s a gold digger and a brazen hussy. It’s impossible not to love her.

This a pre-code movie which means that you can’t assume you’ll get the conventional ending that the Production Code would have mandated had it been made after 1934. So the ending is not quite what you expect but I liked it.

The Truth About Youth is thoroughly enjoyable and the two lead female performances are a treat. Highly recommended.

This movie is paired with another First National pre-code offering, The Right of Way (1931), on a single disc in the Warner Archive series. The Truth About Youth gets a pretty decent transfer.

The Right of Way (1931)

The Right of Way is a pre-code melodrama from First National Pictures. It was made in 1930 but not released until 1931.

The setting is Quebec. Charley Steele (Conrad Nagel) is a very successful trial lawyer. He’s very much a cynic. He has just won a case but he is convinced that the man he defended was in fact guilty of murder. This just adds to Charley’s self-loathing. He combines self-loathing with self-pity and he deals with both these afflictions by getting drunk as often as possible, and staying drunk.

He is trapped in a loveless marriage with Kathleen (Olive Tell) which doesn’t help.

Adding to his woes is Kathleen’s worthless kid brother Billy. Billy is a spectacularly unsuccessful gambler. He’s also a pathetic weasel and a coward. Charley and Kathleen have come to his rescue countless times but on this occasion Billy has helped himself to the contents of Charley’s safe. The money he stole doesn’t belong to Charley, it belongs to a trust fund administered by Charley so this is going to cause Charley considerable embarrassment.

Charley’s attempt to get the money back ends disastrously.

The movie then changes gears abruptly. The setting shifts to the Canadian wilderness. Charley no longer knows who he is. He has a new life, of sorts. And a sweetheart. Rosalie Evantural (Loretta Young) nursed Charley back to life and they have fallen madly in love.

There are of course some major obstacles to their love, about which they as yet know nothing.

This is pure melodrama and melodrama is not only an unfashionable genre but a much despised one. Even worse it’s a seriously misunderstood genre. It has its own conventions, like any other genre. The conventions of other genres are taken for granted while the conventions of melodrama are a stumbling block for many viewers.

It’s odd that melodrama is looked down upon on the grounds that it is unrealistic and non-naturalistic while these same qualities are happily accepted in genres such as horror, science fiction, westerns and romantic comedies.

The Right of Way certainly relies a good deal on coincidence but coincidence is one of the conventions of melodrama.

There’s also plenty of over-the-top emotionalism.

The acting here is very much in the melodrama style. I don’t mind that but it bothers a lot of people.

Olive Tell’s performance as Kathleen is certainly exaggerated. Conrad Nagel is outrageously hammy but he’s a great deal of fun.

The exception here is Loretta Young. Her performance is very naturalistic and very assured. She’s also charming and gorgeous.

Somehow, despite their different acting approaches, Nagel and Loretta Young manage to get some decent romantic chemistry going.

The problem with this movie is not the melodrama or the creakiness (and it does have some of the creakiness associated with the talkies of 1929 and 1930). The problem is the moralising.

We think of the pre-code era as a time when movies were raising questions about traditional morality. They were generally not seeking to overturn traditional morality, merely suggesting that perhaps it need not be applied rigidly and mercilessly. It need not be all about punishment. It’s worth bearing in mind that this did not apply to all movies made during this time. The Right of Way has no doubts about where it stands. There can be no flexibility, no mercy, no forgiveness.

The Right of Way is difficult to recommend. It’s not exactly enjoyable viewing. If you’re expecting pre-code verve, sparkle and cheekiness you won’t find any here.

This movie is paired with another First National pre-code offering, The Truth About Youth, on a single disc in the Warner Archive series. The Right of Way gets an acceptable transfer.