New Morals for Old

This is a very ordinary precode involving the wealthy Thomases. The parents (Lewis Stone and Laura Hope Crews) are worried about their two grown children. Son Ralph (Robert Young) as well as daughter Phyl (Margaret Perry) are taken to partying every night and sleeping until noon. Ralph's individual demon is that he fancies himself more than a designer of wallpaper at the family business - he wants to go to France and become a great artist. Phyl's problem is that she is in love with a married man (David Newell as Duf) whose wife won't let him go. Both kids wind up doing what they want to do in spite of their parents' objections. Ralph does go to France to study art. Phyl sets up house with Duf with no hope of marriage in sight. So far this is an extraordinarily ordinary precode. So what makes it worthwhile? For one, one kid winds up with their hopes dashed the other gets their wish. Which one triumphs and which one does not and how this happens is the unexpected part. Also very interesting is a tryst Ralph has with a French neighbor when he is in Paris. That neighbor happens to be played by Myrna Loy and the nature of the tryst is what is so unexpected. In one scene she is complaining about the noise Ralph is making. In the next scene it is the next morning and she and Ralph are bouncing around in their pajamas! What's more we never see the French girl again in Ralph's life. How realistic that not every sexual encounter leads to either tragedy or the altar, which is something that would never be allowed in the production code era.

The ending is warm although abrupt as the kids grow a few years older and seem to be gradually becoming their parents. Plus both kids grow a genuine appreciation for Aunty Doe (Elizabeth Patterson), someone they ridiculed just a few years before as silly and out of touch.

This one is an OK time passer, but there really is nothing out of the ordinary to distinguish it from other precodes of the era other than the chance to see two stars just starting out - Myrna Loy and Robert Young - and one star of the stage making a rare film appearance - Margaret Perry.

For a while this excellent, still moving and relevant antique seems to be a precursor to the notion of the Generation Gap. The parents did it one way. The children do it another.

But it is racy and, though contrived and melodramatic, fascinating.

It is also the single most appealing performance by Robert Young I've ever seen. He did pot have the self-satisfied smirk of several decades of later work. He is very plausible. My second-favorite of his movies is the charming "Lady Be Good," in which he truly seems to enjoy working with Ann Sothern.

"New Morals" still has power and does not deserve its obscurity.

Parents will have a tough time getting through New Morals for Old without staining a Kleenex or two with tears. The entire point of the film is that children never listen to their parents, even though their lessons are wise and worthy, and after they've seen a bit of life, they realize that their parents were right all along. If you hate your parents and don't want to eventually eat crow, you're not going to want to watch Robert Young and Margaret Perry do it in the movie. Watch something else tonight.

Margaret Perry is absolutely adorable, and even though she falls in love with a married man, David Newell, and becomes his mistress in a love nest, you can't help but love her. This was her first of two total films, and I have no idea why she didn't rocket to stardom. Not only is she cute to look at, but she has talent! In the movie, she really does feel bad about causing a rift in her family. She collapses in tears in her father Lewis Stone's lap when she tells him how she's living. Mother Laura Hope Crews won't receive David in the house and has a very strained relationship with her daughter forever after. Meanwhile, playboy Robert Young refuses to settle down and get a respectable job. He travels to Paris to become an artist and shacks up with the morally loose Myrna Loy.

If you like the message, this movie is worth watching. The acting is very good, and there are some pre-Code aspects that are sure to evoke a giggle. When Robert studies art, he attends the classic class to draw nudes, and since this movie was made in 1932, the model is shown. Myrna's ten minutes on the screen are also very raunchy, and the script makes no secret to her type of relationship with Bob.

The generation gap in 1932.Two retired people see their children (a boy and a girl) turn their back on mom's nice rice pudding and want to marry a divorcée (the girl) and to go and study art in Paris (the boy).

All in all ,neither the obsolete precepts of the old nor the modern way of life of the young are satisfying .Travel broadens the mind ,for sure,but when your talent is mediocre ,the best of art professors cannot do anything for you ,even if he teaches (or is supposed to) in French.And it's almost probable that the two rebels will become their parents without a sound.The last pictures glorify Family with a capital F.

After watching "New Morals for Old", I was left wondering just what was the point of this movie. I really am not sure....and wonder if the writer was equally undecided!

The film concerns a family of rich folks who seem to have way too much money and way too much time on their hands. Although the father (Lewis Stone) worked to make his fortune, his kids (Robert Young and Margaret Perry) seem like spoiled and rather amoral jerks. The son wants to run off to Paris to become a painter and the daughter wants to sleep with a married man. While the parents can't understand this sort of behavior, in this very permissive family, they really don't say much of anything about this. Eventually, the father dies and the son finally takes off to paint. And,...well, there really isn't much more to the film.

The film MIGHT be saying that a new, selfish and permissive age is coming or it might have tried saying that the parents were just old fashioned and behind the times--but I can't be sure. The movie seemed to take an amoral approach--showing the kids' behaviors in a very direct and non-judgmental manner. Well, I might have felt that was okay for the son but the film had a definite Pre-Code attitude about adultery, that's for sure. The bottom line is that I objected far less to the kids' actions and more that there was no sort of point to any of this...none.