Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 6-January-08
Spoiler Rating: Medium

As Young As You Feel (1951)

"As Young As You Feel" is a Frank Capra movie made later than most and by somebody else. It touts love and happiness and offers social commentary against the soulless pursuit of money. While it does not match Capra's better work — there are too many loose ends for that — it does bring a smile to one's face.

At the center of the story is John Hodges (Monty Woolley), the well-loved grandpa in a home consisting of his dull son, chatty daughter-in-law (Thelma Ritter), and sweet granddaughter (Jean Peters), who is itching to marry her ambitious beau (David Wayne). A limp attempt to mark them as quirky falls to Ritter, but they mostly appear as a normal middle-class family with the standard challenges of getting along and getting by. That is, things appear normal until Grandpa gets canned from the printing press where he has spent all his working years because he has reached the age of sixty-five. Refusing to lie down and die (or linger in the park with the other geezers), he devises a scheme to get his job back. In a scene even more sadly humorous now than half a century ago, he learns how the press is a subsidiary many times removed of the conglomerate Consolidated Motors. A quick trip to the library gives him the name of this mega-company's CEO, and he puts his plan into motion.

A few days later Harold P. Cleveland, president of Consolidated Motors, arrives to survey the press, much to the consternation of its president, Mr. McKinley (Albert Dekker). Only one person recognizes the visitor as the impostor John Hodges. Originally intending just to blow through and abolish the rule of forced retirement, he ends up making an impassioned speech at a business luncheon which is picked up by newspapers across the country. Then he goes home to dinner with Mr. McKinley and entrances his wife (Constance Bennett), who sees in the ersatz Harold Cleveland all the romance that her husband lacks. (Some of her husband's shortfalls arise from an infatuation with his secretary, played by the up-and-coming Marilyn Monroe.) In short, Grandpa's ruse gets out of hand and shakes up lives all over.

Of course everyone benefits from a situation which might reasonably cause anger, grief, and incarceration. They learn lessons about the inequity of agism and the dangers of putting profit before people in both the individual and corporate sphere. These are worthwhile lessons, even pleasant when delivered with a light touch, which may be why their appeal persists across decades — and across filmmakers.

Copyright © 2008 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.