Young Man With Ideas has Glenn Ford as a young very junior attorney at a law firm in some small Montana town who's not the most forceful fellow around. With a wife and three kids, he can't afford to be. Wife Ruth Roman sees something more in him and convinces him to be more assertive. Ford decides to move the family to Los Angeles where he can work and study to pass the California bar.
The rest of the film is the trials and tribulations they have in Los Angeles, some comic, some serious. Ford shakes off some of his inhibitions, not always in constructive ways.
Glenn Ford is one of the easiest to take actors around and his films reflect that. He's got the art of underplaying down to a science. and Young Man With Ideas is a great example of that.
Look for good supporting performances here, especially from Nina Foch, as a fellow aspiring lawyer, Denise Darcel as a nightclub entertainer, Rith Roman as the wife and Sheldon Leonard as a bookie.
By the way Foch gets Ford a job in a collection agency she works for and some of the film's best moments are from the mild mannered Ford working there.
