Our Hearts Were Growing Up

Gail Russell and Diana Lynn played Cornelia and Emily...two young ladies who were touring Europe and getting into trouble in "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay". Now, in "Our Hearts Were Growing Up", they have further adventures much closer to home.

Cornelia and Emily are going to meet their sweethearts at the big Princeton-Harvard football game. But when the boyfriends cannot make it to escort them on the trainride, Emily has a brilliant idea. She knows they won't be allowed to travel without an escort (after al, this is the 1920s) and so she randomly picks a guy and tells everyone he is her Uncle!! The guy (Brian Donlevy) actually turns out to be a bootlegger...and many complications and silly situations ensue.

This film is good old fashioned innocent fun. The actresses are most enjoyable and the script satisfying. A nice time-passer...and a good followup to the previous picture.

Our Hearts Were Growing Up is a sequel to Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, and it continues to follow the misadventures of Gail Russell and Diana Lynn, two teenage girls in the 1920s. In this one, you'll see the familiar faces of the boyfriends they each got from the first movie, James Brown and Bill Edwards. In their rush to get to the Harvard-Princeton game, to support Gail's boyfriend James, the girls lie to the headmistress of their girls' school, Sara Haden. They say their Uncle Eddie is meeting them at the train station and will act as their chaperone all weekend. The trouble is Uncle Eddie doesn't exist, and they're left to pick out an "uncle type" and persuade him to lie to Sara.

Brian Donlevy, a bootlegger who wants to hide under the radar and smuggle in his suitcases full of booze, gets chosen. He agrees to help the girls, and right from the get-go he gets a big kick out of being their knight in shining armor. He buys them magazines and chocolates for the train ride and blushes when they kiss his cheek. It's very cute. He's not the focus of the story; that belongs to the frantic and oft-times silly ravings of Gail and Diana. But Brian does get to play the gangster with a heart of gold character that's always very cute.

Gail and Diana have great energy together, and you can really imagine that they're the best of friends. The coming timing is quick (with the exception of Billy de Wolfe's stand-up routines), and the energy is high. Even though the story is silly, you can help but root for the girls to keep hold of their boyfriends.

Amusing, but not nearly as funny as the first adventures of Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough in the previous '44 outing which told of their adventures on a first time trip to Paris in the '20s.

This one is a milder sequel with less interesting complications when they enroll at Princeton and enjoy the attention of a bootlegger (BRIAN DONLEVY) and some handsome college boys.

BILL EDWARDS, JAMES BROWN, WILLIAM DEMAREST--and in a small role, FRANK FAYLEN as a Federal agent, are adept at handling the comic situations with finesse. The script by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama is not quite up to the standards set by "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay", but as the girls on the prowl, GAIL RUSSELL and DIANA LYNN are still delightful to watch and BILLY DE WOLFE has fun with his role as a madcap Frenchman.

It's a pleasant, old-fashioned trifle that should please those charmed by the original film.