Young Bride

This is a fascinating film for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is showcasing one of the best performances given by Helen Twelvetrees, an actress with a fairly limited range of roles; once her studio discovered she played victimized women with great conviction, poor Helen was stuck in roles usually subservient to insensitive or brutal men.

All the more reason to watch this film, in which her one-note braggart husband, loud and crass Eric Linden, makes continued promises about future riches, about fidelity and business, but ultimately comes to terms of a kind with his now-pregnant wife.

Hundreds of films like this were churned out in the 1930's for women's matinées, and many stars were handed similar roles of beaten-down women--most, like Loretta Young, Barbara Stanwyck, Ruth Chatterson and Kay Francis were able to cope and now and then rise about the situation, but Young Bride is one of the few where Helen learned a thing or two.

This film is pre-code--one can actually see and man and wife in a twin bed together under the covers; two years later and such a scene could no longer be shown in any Hollywood film for over 25 years! There's also a good deal of salty language in some nifty set pieces depicting a dance hall, a chop suey joint, and a dusty library. Add to this several subtle performances by secondary players (Cliff Edwards, later the voice of Jiminy Cricket!) and you have a "weeper" worth your time.

A better than average soaper, complete with a full roster of marital melodramatics, "Young Bride" was meant to be something of a star vehicle for Helen Twelvetrees (her married name, believe it or not), but young and handsome Eric Linden steals the show with his bad-boy good-looks and his bratty attitude.

Capable of better things (as he proved a few years later in the classic filmed play, "Ah Wilderness"), Linden's talent shines through the stiff dialog in "Young Bride" and triumphs over it's tired, and not-unexpected, ending.

Linden's later performance in "Ah Wilderness" seems to be the role he was born to play.

He made a few films of note afterwards, but his roles grew smaller in later years, eventually down to just "bit" parts.

Twelvetrees proves to be a poor leading lady for the dynamic Linden. If you didn't know that she was a bigger name than he was in 1932, and you were seeing this film for the first time, many years after it's release, you would have to wonder why she received top billing.

The supporting cast was sturdy;-- I'm especially fond of the always-stammering Roscoe Ates. He seems to be enjoyable regardless of what film he's in, or how he's cast.

I'm sure David O. Selznick was responsible for the film's polished look. He gave many early RKO films a touch of class-- And not too many people could effectively polish up those city tenements in films like this. (the best example of the "well-staged-slums-for-the-stage" film, in my humble opinion, was Sam Goldwyn's 1937 production of the Broadway hit, "Dead End").

But it's Eric Linden who really makes this film worth a watch.--

Without Linden's "bursting with energy" presence, this would be one tired old soaper. He could even make you believe that poor-boy pool-hall slackers wore suits every day, although not too many could fill out a suit the way Eric Linden did...

In this story of love among the tenements, the fantasizing Twelvetrees finds the man of her dreams in streetwise Linden, a loudmouthed pool-hall hustler who flaunts his manhood among the local taxi-dancing floozies. When Twelvetrees learns the nature of the man she has married--not too difficult within the confines of their one-room boarding-house domicile--she contemplates suicide. Linden wins some money at pool, but loses it to the mercenary Judge. When Linden attempts to recover the money, he is beaten. His lesson learned, the contrite lad creeps back to his bride a changed man. Early kitchen-sink drama with restrained performances and excellent support.

This is an entertaining little movie. Helen Twelvetrees plays Allie Smith, a young woman who has few friends and keeps to herself. She meets Eric Linden, as Charlie Riggs who is always working on the big deal that will set him financially for life. She is swept off her feet and after her marriage she finds out that Charlie is not the man she thinks he was. In true Hollywood fashion everything works out after they both hit rock bottom. Good performances make this film rise above all the cliches.

The great thing about Turner Classic Movies is that no matter how many old movies you have seen, you will regularly come across actors and actresses whose names you have never heard before, but once you see them, are fascinated, and glad to make their acquaintance. So it was with the beautiful and oddly named Helen Twelvetrees. She was a very good blond actress whose career barely spanned the decade of the 1930's. Here, in "Young Bride", she is delicate and vulnerable, but not in an annoying weak way; she has a face full of beautiful character, one that you want to comfort and murmur to how everything will be alright. A lovely find, and too bad she was not a major star.

On the other hand, I have never been a fan of Eric Linden, who plays her immature braggart of a husband. I think it is that horrendous Bronx accent of his; even when he is playing sympathetic, which is rare in this film, I just don't find him to be all that appealing. I don't think I was the only one who felt this way, as his career dried up quickly as the 1930's moved on.

A very interesting cultural aspect of this film is how so much of it takes place in a "dance hall"; this is a public tavern where men came and bought tickets to dance with the female hired help. It appears that there was a great demand for these kinds of establishments, as a way for men to meet girls and socialize in a pre-TV and pre-Internet Depression-era society. Particularly fascinating is that it seems that at a certain weird level, open lewd behavior was strictly prohibited; at one point in this film, the fellow who is in charge of watching the dancers sternly calls to Eric Linden to "keep your feet moving"! (ie - no hanky-panky on the floor!) I wonder if such places really existed. Certainly this is a portrait of an urban America that died a long long time ago...

When not in the dance halls or Twelvetree's apartment, most scenes take place in a public library. Isn't that a weird combination? Throw in the fabulously stuttering Roscoe Ates as a bartender and you have a unique, slightly odd movie that, primarily thanks to the delightful screen presence of Helen Twelvetrees, is worthy of an hour and a quarter of your time.