Young Man of Manhattan

Norman Foster and Claudette Colbert are two news writers who get married. At first all is well, but his sports work keeps him away from home, and her writing attracts attention, a column, an offer to Hollywood, and Leslie Austen. Meanwhile, helium-voiced schoolgirl Ginger Rogers, resentment at his wife's success, and bootleg liquor draw Foster's attention.

It's a competently written screenplay from Katherine Brush's novel, and director Monta Bell does a good job with the serious sections. However, Charlie Ruggles as Foster's fellow sports writer is largely wasted as the knowing observer who says nothing. Foster and Miss Colbert were married when this was made. If that added to their pairing, or it was simply good acting on their parts, I can't tell.

Foster would continue to play the young lover for a few years, then disappear behind the camera, directing mostly B pictures and television episodes. He died in 1976, aged 72.

This shows just what a difference a skilful and committed director and an intelligent empathetic scriptwriter can make to a pretty lightweight story. You are instantly engaged in the lives of this newly married couple - they've been your friends for years haven't they?

For a 1930 picture, the acting is excellent. Everyone is thoroughly natural; the entire cast are completely believable people rather than actors simply playing parts. It's quite a rarity for a film of this age to have such an intimate, almost fly-on-the-wall feel. It makes you wonder why all films from 1930 weren't made this well.

If you didn't know beforehand that the annoying flirty schoolgirl was Ginger Rogers you would never have guessed. She's utterly unrecognisable especially with that Betty Boop voice. For a debut role, she's remarkably good as the jail-bait, fly in the ointment threatening the marriage of newly wed Ann and Toby. Although ostensibly just a silly character with a silly catchphrase, 'cigarette me, big boy,' it's actually quite a brave role for an aspiring actress to take on. She handles the nuances with sensitivity balancing the flighty and frivolous personality with the disturbing connotations of underage sex and possibly breaking up a marriage.

Besides the real life couple, Claudette Colbert and Norman Foster who play the newly weds, who are excellent, Charlie Ruggles gives a surprisingly great performance as well. Again this demonstrates the effect of good writing raising his character from that of a silly drunk to a well rounded sympathetic real person.

As well made as this is, it's actually a fairly insubstantial story but made and acted extremely well. It's hardly great, it's not clever or innovative and certainly not memorable but nevertheless it's hugely entertaining.

This routine seriocomedy flirts with some interesting ideas but doesn't really follow through on them enough to distinguish itself. Colbert and Foster play reporters who marry, then find their careers are a problem--both of them have erratic hours, occasional late nights and out-of-town trips, so each is never there when the other wants them. His character isn't particularly sympathetic by today's standards, because he whines and moans whenever her work takes her away from him, but when the shoe is on the other foot he doesn't grasp the hypocrisy of his complaints one bit. Worse, he takes to drinking too much, isn't grateful when she pays the bills because he can't, and strings along a besotted ninny (Ginger Rogers in her early dark-haired, squeak-voiced phase as a flapper caricature) for idle diversion. Colbert meanwhile is courted by a rich patron/news source, but keeps him at a professional arm's distance.

In the early-talkie manner, there's a rather stilted, interior-bound quality to the action, with dead-air sound (actually downright poor sound in the transfer I saw, but that might just have been the fault of a poor dupe) and very little background music. This movie actually could have used a nightclub song or production number or two to liven it up; it's not quite serious enough to be involving as a drama, and not quite diverting enough to be a comedy. (Rogers does sing what might as well be the anthem for characters like hers, "I've Got 'It' But It Don't Do Me No Good," but just by herself at a living-room piano.) There's brief curiosity value in the appearance by "The Four Sherman Sisters," a quartet of pretty (alleged) siblings, but they don't perform, either; they just sling around a few weak quips and get drunk with Foster and his best pal Charles Ruggles (who's had better material, too).

There isn't anything very notably "pre-Code" about this feature unless you count the alcohol consumption, whose depiction would soon get cleaned up by the Production Code. Nor does the movie exactly capture much of a Manhattan feel, as there's little exterior footage. Foster plays a sports writer, so there's fleeting interest in (very brief) clips of various sporting events that were presumably shot for newsreels rather than specifically for this feature.

The movie's major plus is Colbert, who looks great and treats the goings on with a common- sense unflappability that suggests her heroine is considerably smarter than the callow husband she nonetheless stays loyal to. (Their marital conflicts are predictably resolved by a crisis that drops out of nowhere to re-strengthen their vows.) Co-star Foster would soon leave acting for a long, successful if seldom distinguished career directing mostly B movies and television episodes.

I found "Young Man of Manhattan" on YouTube and the copy leaves a LOT to be desired. The sound quality is rather poor and the print is a bit fuzzy. Clearly the film could use some restoration work.

The film stars Claudette Colbert and Ginger Rogers is on hand in a supporting role, though you might not recognize Rogers. This is because this is a pre-makeover movie...one she made when she was a brunette and before she had voice lessons.

Ann and Tobey (Claudette Colbert and Norman Foster) are fools. After knowing each other only a few hours, they marry! But the honeymoon period is brief and the marriage seems destined for divorce court...mostly because Tobey is a moody guy who drinks and isn't good husband material. Some of this might be because she's a reporter and he's a sports reporter and his ego might not like a wife who is every bit as successful...perhaps more so. Do they stand a chance?

This is a decent film BUT I don't recommend you see it unless you find a better copy...the sound is THAT bad. Plus, the acting is only okay....especially in the case of Rogers, who I said is in a pre-makeover film and her voice is less enjoyable in this early movie.

YOUNG MAN OF MANHATTAN is a highly entertaining comedy/drama early talkie particularly notable as the only film real-life married couple Norman Foster and Claudette Colbert made together. The duo star as newspaper reporters who meet as each is covering a boxing match (Foster is a regular sports reporter, Colbert is a multi-interest writer). With a major rainstorm going on (apparently, the fight is an outdoor match as the spectators get soaked!), Foster invites Colbert up to his nearby apartment to work on the story since she has to make the morning edition of her paper. Norman is instantly bewitched by this beautiful, intelligent "career girl" and proposes marriage before Claudette can pull the last sheet out of her typewriter.

Within the week they are Mr. and Mrs. but their whirlwind of love has potential problems. Somewhat traditional, Foster is a bit troubled by the fact that his wife makes essentially the same salary and then there is the issue that while he seems content to doodle through life as "just" a sports reporter (despite vague dreams of writing fiction), ambitious Claudette is eager to move up in the writing world. She's also remarkably "modern", suggesting that since both are always on the go pursuing stories it is OK for both of them to have "see" other people, presumably as platonic dinner dates. While out of town covering a story, Foster is pursued by teen-aged socialite/vamp Ginger Rogers, who follows him back to New York. Colbert continues to move up the publishing ladder, sent to California for an extended period to cover the film industry. Norman, meanwhile, continues ignoring bills, gambling, giving friends loans, and barely writing his column much less aiming for something higher and baby hussy Ginger is making her designs on Norman a little too obvious for Claudette who finds she isn't so modern after all and asks Norman to stop seeing her. When she finds out the duo were spotted at "The Jungle Club" the morning after Foster slips in at 3 am after a bender, it's the last straw and she asks him to move out.

This adaption of a popular Katherine Brush novel of the day may be a standard story but the cast makes it something quite wonderful. This was one of Claudette Colbert's first films, obviously with no star power at the studio at this point, she is frequently shot from angles she would have never permitted a decade later and while they may not flatter her beauty at times, she remains at all times an attractive and appealing woman. Husband Norman Foster made a career out of this type of character in early talkies, the smooth talking every man who turns out to have a number of character flaws and proves to be a mistake for the star lady. Here he has a more sympathetic adaptation of that character than normally and he makes the most of his role. 19-year-old Ginger Rogers is almost unrecognizable from her later superstar persona, here a dark-headed redhead, she speaks in a flirty almost Betty Boopish voice and is quite the coquette even if she too is often not photographed at her best. The fourth major character of the film is played by Charles Ruggles, a few years away from his own stock persona as the harried middle-aged everyman, it's particular delight to see Charlie as a snappy newspaperman with a sharp wit and a equal love for the ladies and liquor.

Basically a romantic drama with some good laughs, YOUNG MAN OF MANHATTAN although a modest picture is sure to please fans of pre-codes and certainly makes one wish Mr. and Mrs. Foster had been teamed together more often than this single film. Sports fans will also want to check it out for the (very) brief stock footage of Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, and Babe Ruth inserted into the picture.