"The Happy Years" is a coming of age film - at the earliest stages, of a young boy from a very wealthy family in the northeastern USA of 1896. It is billed as a comedy, romance and family film. But this is an utterly humorless film. There are no funny or clever lines of dialog, there are no humorous antics, and there's not a single comical situation. Perhaps the movie moguls at MGM in 1950 saw a smart-alecky, disrespectful kid and his mean-spirited prank of scaring and humiliating one girl after another as comedy. Well, audiences of 1950 didn't see it that way, and neither do I these many years later.
Before just watching this film on DVD, I wondered why I hadn't seen it before. In my growing up years of the mid-20th century, and young to middle-aged adult years, we watched many nighttime movies and late night movies on TV. But I hadn't even heard of this film before. And, having seen some good to very good films about growing up and coming of age during the late 19th and earth 20th centuries, I thought I might enjoy this one. But after watching it, I can understand why it probably never made the late night movie schedules anywhere.
This movie is dull. There is no comedy. And I can't imagine what the studio saw as romance in it. The family aspect was mostly of a super rich couple with three kids, one of whom was a renegade and apparently not at all or ever disciplined by his parents. The plot has the family sending the rebel son, John Humperdink Stover, off to another private school after he was dismissed from the last one he attended. The film is very slow and mostly tedious. There are just a couple of breaks with any kind of life - one is on a gridiron when the Kennedy house team plays against another house team in an intramural rivalry. This did provide a little interest in showing a football game being played that ended in a 4-4 tie. It didn't show any scoring, but evidently each team scored one, two or four touchdowns, which each counted for 1, 2 or 4 points. But, that aside, there is hardly anything else of interest in this film. Even the transformation of Stover toward the end isn't satisfactory. It happens rather fast and unconvincingly.
This film did have some actors of note. Dean Stockwell was 14 years old when he played Dink Stover in this film. He was at the height of his popularity as a child star then, and he would go on to have a long career, mostly in TV and in supporting roles. Another up-and-coming young actor in the film is Darryl Hickman who would have a long career, again in supporting roles and much on TV. And one of Dink's schoolmates in the film, Tennessee Shad, was played by Scotty Beckett. He was one of the biggest child stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, who also had promise going into adulthood. But Becket's life would turn sour with alcohol, drugs, and crime, and he died of an overdose of barbiturates in a third suicide attempt in 1968, at age 38.
In the better known category of adult actors are Leon Ames as the senior Stover and father, Samuel. And, Leo G. Carroll has the meatiest role as The Old Roman, a teacher, house master and coach at Lawrenceville School. His is the only role of substance that is performed very well. It is for Carroll's role mostly, that I give this film even four stars.
I am surprised to see revews by so many who think this is a very good film -- even with just 760 ratings as of the time of my writing here. It's overall rating of 6.8 in April 2024 is much higher than audiences of the day would have given it. The film bombed at the box office and lost MGM over half a million dollars. It finished the year 147th in ticket sales at the box office. I doubt that many movie buffs today would find this film entertaining or enjoyable.
Before just watching this film on DVD, I wondered why I hadn't seen it before. In my growing up years of the mid-20th century, and young to middle-aged adult years, we watched many nighttime movies and late night movies on TV. But I hadn't even heard of this film before. And, having seen some good to very good films about growing up and coming of age during the late 19th and earth 20th centuries, I thought I might enjoy this one. But after watching it, I can understand why it probably never made the late night movie schedules anywhere.
This movie is dull. There is no comedy. And I can't imagine what the studio saw as romance in it. The family aspect was mostly of a super rich couple with three kids, one of whom was a renegade and apparently not at all or ever disciplined by his parents. The plot has the family sending the rebel son, John Humperdink Stover, off to another private school after he was dismissed from the last one he attended. The film is very slow and mostly tedious. There are just a couple of breaks with any kind of life - one is on a gridiron when the Kennedy house team plays against another house team in an intramural rivalry. This did provide a little interest in showing a football game being played that ended in a 4-4 tie. It didn't show any scoring, but evidently each team scored one, two or four touchdowns, which each counted for 1, 2 or 4 points. But, that aside, there is hardly anything else of interest in this film. Even the transformation of Stover toward the end isn't satisfactory. It happens rather fast and unconvincingly.
This film did have some actors of note. Dean Stockwell was 14 years old when he played Dink Stover in this film. He was at the height of his popularity as a child star then, and he would go on to have a long career, mostly in TV and in supporting roles. Another up-and-coming young actor in the film is Darryl Hickman who would have a long career, again in supporting roles and much on TV. And one of Dink's schoolmates in the film, Tennessee Shad, was played by Scotty Beckett. He was one of the biggest child stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, who also had promise going into adulthood. But Becket's life would turn sour with alcohol, drugs, and crime, and he died of an overdose of barbiturates in a third suicide attempt in 1968, at age 38.
In the better known category of adult actors are Leon Ames as the senior Stover and father, Samuel. And, Leo G. Carroll has the meatiest role as The Old Roman, a teacher, house master and coach at Lawrenceville School. His is the only role of substance that is performed very well. It is for Carroll's role mostly, that I give this film even four stars.
I am surprised to see revews by so many who think this is a very good film -- even with just 760 ratings as of the time of my writing here. It's overall rating of 6.8 in April 2024 is much higher than audiences of the day would have given it. The film bombed at the box office and lost MGM over half a million dollars. It finished the year 147th in ticket sales at the box office. I doubt that many movie buffs today would find this film entertaining or enjoyable.