The Truth About Youth

It's fun to see the plot of this early talkie careen back and forth between traditional melodrama and coming of age story, with some hints of almost incestuous attraction in a May-December romance. Conway Tearle plays a middle-aged bachelor who has raised the son of a friend (who died when the boy was only 6). Now the boy, affectionately nicknamed The Imp (David Manners) is turning 21 and he's engaged to be married to Loretta Young, daughter of Tearle's housekeeper. The Imp is a callow youth (after all, he's played by David Manners) and he skips a carefully planned birthday dinner to spend the night carousing with a sexy, gold digging nightclub singer (Myrna Loy). She thinks the boy has a big inheritance and so agrees to marry him when he asks her, but what she doesn't know is that Manners has very little money at all. Young finds a love letter from Loy to Manners, but Tearle covers up for Manners by saying it was written to him (they both have the same first name). This ploy, however, upsets Young even more; it turns out that she has been nursing a crush on the older man for some time. Tearle goes though an elaborate charade to keep the truth from Young, not realizing all the time that Young is miserable.

It's a 1930 movie, so it's a little stiff and stagy, in production and acting. Loy is wonderful, like a breath of fresh air whenever she's around, glittery and sexy and dangerous. Manners is his usual rather awkward self (when he's staring with lust at Loy, he looks rather like Harpo Marx during his drunk scene in THE COCOANUTS) but he has the leading man looks needed for the part. Young is not as good as she would be in later movies; both she and Tearle are rather stiff. The characters could be fleshed out a bit more; all the exposition is crammed into a long dialogue scene in the first ten minutes of the movie. I would particularly recommend this to Loy fans-it's always fun seeing her as a kind of femme fatal (as she was in several of her early films) and contrasting that image with her good-girl/wifely image later in her career.

"The Truth About Youth" is a 1930 film of special interest because of two of its young stars, Loretta Young and Myrna Loy. The story concerns a housekeeper's daughter Phyllis (Young) who is engaged to the young man of the house, "The Imp" (David Manners). He has just turned 21 and has been raised by a triumvirate of guardians, chiefly Richard (Conway Tearle). "The Imp" (whose real name is Richard) falls madly in lust with a man trap called Kara, who performs at a club and is known as "The Firefly." He writes her a passionate letter and when Phyllis finds it, the elder Richard claims it's his.

Because this is an early talkie, the film comes off as rather wooden. Both Loy and Young are gorgeous, Loy as a vamp and Young as a sweet young thing. Both had those short hairdos with the tight wave so popular back then. Loy has the better role as a money-grubber, and she's great. The gown she wears in performance is a knockout - an actress could wear it to the Oscars today.

The men are just okay, with the exception of two of the guardians, J. Farrell McDonald and Harry Stubbs, who provide some humor.

Before she became Nora Charles, Loy was cast as a vamp, usually an exotic one, until a producer who knew her personally decided to mine her humor. "The Truth About Youth" is an excellent chance to see her in an early role.

The first 60 seconds when Loretta Young enters in that special dress talking to the character "Dick" is worth the price of admission itself. Silly fun pre Code with Myrna Loy & Loretta Young? 7 stars!

Truth About Youth, The (1930)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Incredibly flat and lifeless drama about an older man (Conway Tearle) who raises a boy (David Manners) as his own in hopes that he will marry the housekeeper's daughter (Loretta Young). The only problem is that the boy falls in love with a "much older" vamp (Myrna Loy) who plans on stealing all of his money. Young is my favorite actress and I'm a big fan of both Manners and Loy so this film comes as a major disappointment because it starts off lousy and gets worse as it goes along. The biggest problem with this thing, and there are many, is that the screenplay is so old-fashioned that it doesn't fit in with the type of entertainment coming out in the 30s. Why the studio would pick this type of story to make a talkie out of is beyond me because I can't imagine anyone enjoying it in 1930 and it's even worse today. The screenplay is one big moral lesson after another as we're constantly told why we should marry the girl out home instead of going out in the big, bad city where mean women are waiting to steal money. The narrow-minded stereotypes here are at times mildly laughable but things take an even dumber turn when the ending arrives and if you think about what's going on it becomes rather creepy. I also find it funny that the studio had Loy playing the "much older" seducer even though Manners was actually four years older than her in real life. The early talkie makes for some pretty bad moments as it seems there are a few times where the actors mess up their lines because we get a brief pause like they're trying to remember them. The weird camera shots and some static direction doesn't help things either. I think fans of the three, like me, will probably find the performances rather disappointing as well. Just take a look at the early scenes where Manners is playing drunk and you'll probably end up laughing at how stiff he is. It's even worse when a letter is discovered and Manners' fears that Young has discovered his secret. The way Manners stands there with his eyes wide open is just plain bad. Loy is so-so in her part but there's no denying that she's much too young to be playing it. Young has a few rough moments but she comes off the best as she's certainly believable in the part and we can certainly feel for her. She might also have the highlight in the opening scene as she's shown in a dress is quite a sexual way. With all of that said, this is an extremely dull movie that has very little going for it and I'm sure many will have a hard time sitting through the rather short 64-minutes.

It's always nice to see Myrna Loy and Loretta Young, and despite portions of the story being cliché, there's nothing really wrong with the plot of this relatively short movie. David Manners plays a young man who is intended for Young, but finds himself seduced by Loy, who is a nightclub performer and gold-digger. Unfortunately, the execution of the film is sub-par: too much of the dialog is overly polished and doesn't ring true, and there's something that's just 'off'. I think it's Manners as well as Conway Tearle, who plays his foster father. I wasn't wild about Loy's nightclub performances which are clearly dubbed, and what a gold opportunity director William A. Seiter had there. Young expresses hidden desire for Tearle well, and there is also some nice comic relief from a couple of friends of his (J. Farrell MacDonald and Harry Stubbs), but it's not enough to make this a good movie. A better one from 1930 with boy Loy and Young that you probably would enjoy more is 'The Devil to Pay!', which also starred Ronald Colman.