From the 1950s: The Happy Years

1950 Comedy

From MGM

Directed by William Wellman

Starring

Dean Stockwell

Darryl Hickman

Scotty Beckett

Leon Ames

Margalo Gilmore

Leo G. Carroll

Donn Gift

Peter Thompson 

Elinor Donahue

Here's a forgotten film about the good ol' days... the late 1890s to be specific.  My sentimental side has always been drawn to American movies about that time period... say something along the lines of Meet Me in St. Louis.   While I am reminded of my childhood, more to the point is the wholesomeness of that time.  You remember being wholesome, don't you?

Well, golly, here's a chance to revisit wholesomeness, at least as 1896 was imagined by MGM.  Based on Owen Johnson's The Lawrenceville School Stories, the story concerns bratty, over-privileged, 12-year old John Humperdink (Dink) Stover, son of an exasperated newspaper owner-father who wants his son to straighten up and fast.

After Dink (Stockwell, of course) is tossed out of his boarding school for painting a headmistress's white horse green and causing an explosion in chemistry class that blows away the side of the building.  Dink wears it all with cocky pride while his father (Ames) decides he'll now send his youngest son to his alma mater, the Lawrenceville School, across the river in New Jersey.

Dad has the blessing of his stately wife (Gilmore) and the support of his eldest child, son Samuel (Thompson), himself also a graduate of the school.  Of course to sweeten the pie, Dink is told he's to enter the school remembering to uphold the family name.  It's an awesome responsibility... and a certain impossibility because, let's face it, without that, we have no movie.  Remember this is about young boys at a boarding school and it's a comedy.  Well, er, the comedy is in direct proportion to your ability to go back to wholesome, we might say.

Dink arrives at the school in a horse-drawn carriage.  He caused the horse to gallop at a scary speed because he's hit it with a whip.  The others are not amused.  He has been sitting up with the driver and in the back is an older, most obvious gentleman (Carroll) who observes more than he speaks.  Dink mistakenly assumes he is a salesman.  After trying to insult them, the school and the countryside, even the horse, Dink arrives with his usual snotty attitude and air of self-importance that becomes fodder for housemates and other students.  But Dink is perceived as cowardly by some, especially one, the obvious school jock, Tough McCarty (Hickman) and this especially riles Dink.  

Dink secretly has a little hero-worship regarding Tough which, of course, he doesn't examine and especially not at the dawning of the fifties.  He is a little bit in awe of the school jock but it comes out in counter-charm.  Tough likes to keep Dink in his place and insults are his game.  And c'mon, what kind of a boarding school movie would this be without angst between its lead characters?

Beckett (foreground) and Stockwell

Happy-go-lucky Tennessee Shad (Beckett) is neutral... he sees both sides but is drawn to Dink because he is the underdog.  Tennessee encourages Dink to pop one right in Tough's pretty face.  A fight ensues with the other boys hooting and hollering but it is Dink who comes out the worse for wear.

Then comes the football game and the two enemies are on the same team and have to count on one another.  A rivalry has been busted and a friendship born.

The end?  Not quite.  Like all good boarding school movies, there's got to be pranks and there's got to be some puppy love and combining them is a plot device that's tried and true.

And there's the staff, particularly the one known as the Old Roman.   Some of Dink's comedic moments come about when he finds out his Latin teacher and housemaster is the same man in the back of that  carriage he thought was a salesman.  Carroll plays the Old Roman with his signature crusty but mild-mannered fuddy-duddy  brilliance.  He delivers the film's message in a touching passage that revolves around Dink taking a final exam.  It reminded me of an expression I like... when the student is ready, the master appears.

You know it all ends well and just as you thought it would.  These nostalgic pieces are a dime a dozen and I'm glad they are.  Dink, always keen to speak and to impress with his wily, years-older ways, lays his family out with his maturity.  Why, they knew he had it all the time.

I knew when I first saw it that young Stockwell was a kid with a towering talent.  I saw a lot of his early films around the same time... perhaps from a festival of his work being shown on television.  He is the central character and the star of the piece and again delivers the goods.  They always gave this kid a fair amount of dialogue and he never missed a beat.  And there was all that facial business.  I can imagine him practicing in front of a mirror.  

We know the game Hickman and Stockwell are playing

I always enjoy Hickman as an actor, too.  I am sure I first saw him in Leave Her to Heaven, memorably as the crippled boy Gene Tierney allows to drown in a lake as she sits quietly in a rowboat.  I've seen him in scores of movies but rarely in starring roles.  I was always bummed about that.  I'm guessing he was, too.  I've enjoyed his various interviews, too.  And still alive today at 90.  You go, DH.

This is a good role for Beckett.  He was kinda fun to watch go through his paces.  He was most well-known for his 15 Our Gang shorts and his drug-related death at age 38.  

These are perfect roles for Ames and Gilmore.  He was, after all, the father in the aforementioned Meet Me in St. Louis and knew his way around the late 1890s.  He was always exasperated, too, wasn't he?  Gilmore just as easily nailed playing the society matron as she also did as Clifton Webb's sister in Woman's World and as Grace Kelly's mother in High Society. 

I always thought the strangest thing about this movie is the fact that William Wellman directed it.  This should have been entrusted to one of MGM's lesser directors like Richard Thorpe or Norman Foster but Wellman?  He was a big-time director and loved big, tough-guy type films like Beau Geste, The Ox-Bow Incident, Buffalo Bill, The Story of G. I. Joe, Battleground.  He worked with Gable, Cooper, Wayne, McCrea... that crowd.  He was rough, unruly, obnoxious, a boozer, carouser and known from time to time to pop his male star in the mouth.

Wild Bill Wellman

What was William Wellman, known in the military and around town, as Wild Bill doing directing a routine boys' boarding school flick?  Apparently he had a great time bossing the kids around.  One is not likely to find this film on a brief listing of his films.

But here's the thing.  If you're a Stockwell fan who's  missed this one, take a leap.  No harm can come to you and you might have some fun and come out feeling  wholesome.  

Here's a preview:

Next posting and the one

after... boys in westerns