Young Man with Ideas

Sometimes a lackluster script or bad direction is impossible for a cast to overcome. In this case, it feels like the writing indeed lacks luster-perhaps because two writers are credited.

When the New York Times reviewed the film, on its release, the critic hailed the writing and direction, but called the cast "comparatively second-flight". By today's standards, Glenn Ford, Ruth Roman and Nina Foch are considered first-rate, and they do seem to have a handle on the story. But I still allege that the story itself is flawed.

Ford plays Maxwell Webster, a Montana attorney with a misguided wife (Ruth Roman), who pushes him to get ahead. She is the one with the ideas. Maxwell is always muttering apologies and trying to make people like him. It's a role better suited to Wally Cox. But Ford does his best.

And so does Nina Foch as a sexy candidate for the bar who inexplicably latches onto him like a leech. And so does Denise Darcel as an exotic bombshell who Maxwell tries to collect from when he joins a debt collection firm. Each of these actors is fun to watch individually, but when their characters are forced to interact in this ill-fitting comedy, the effect is annoying.

Maxwell Webster (Glenn Ford) and his wife Julie join his bosses for a dinner party. Julie gets drunk and Maxwell doesn't get the recognition he wants. It all ends badly. Max is good lawyer but a pushover. Julie convinces him to quit and move the family to L. A. They could only get a house which is a former bookie joint. Joyce Laramie inserts herself as his class study buddy to get a Californian law license. She gets him a collection job but he's ill-equipped for the work.

This has some fun. Glenn Ford plays a flustered guy pretty well. There are some good moments and good comedic side characters. The child actor bit is very funny. Max is a little too pathetic at times but it fits his character. I would like less of that. The trial is an interesting turn but it's a bit too serious. All in all, it's good fun for the most part.

Imagine, if you will, a Billy Wilder film where the sharp, cynical humor has been replaced by flaccid, family sit com and you have some idea of this dreary offering from Mitchell Leisen just as his career was starting to slouch toward its dull denouement. Not helping is a cast of good dramatic actors who are hopelessly adrift in comedy. Glenn Ford is way too strong to play the befuddled, nerdish title role and Ruth Roman's attempt at a cute, perky, fifties housewife pretty much falls flat. As does Nina Foch in the temptress role. As for Denise Darcell, well, she's not even a good dramatic actress, let alone funny. Perhaps if scenarist Arthur Sheekman had given these players some lines that are halfway risible things may have been better but Sheekman, who did such a great job adapting "Some Came Running", is also an odd choice when you're dealing with light fare. Solid C.

Glenn Ford renders his usual brand of under-played finesse in "Young Man With Ideas." Fortunately these roles offer a departure from earlier assignments for both he and his leading lady. With polished style Ford woos the audience to embrace Maxwell Webster, a shy "every-man" who longs to break free of a dismal law career in Montana. His wife Julie is delivered with verve by the competent Ruth Roman. Equipped with her trademark upturned collars Roman blossoms as an apt comedienne sidekick to Ford's straight man. Nina Foch perfectly balances this picture injecting some much needed sexual energy as Joyce Laramie a cool "blonde with a brain" law student. Standout supports include Denise Darcel playing Dorianne Gray, a broad lounge act (or a lounge act broad) singing "I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)." The beloved Mary Wickes pops in nearly tearing the scenery from it's hinges, as a kooky stage-mom neighbor she takes only her budding child-star Son as prisoner.

In what otherwise may have been a ho-hum movie given the ordinary A minus treatment, this dusty gem shines like a new penny under expert direction of Mitchell Leisen, a largely well-paced screenplay by Arthur Sheekman and a stalwart cast.

Young Man With Ideas has Glenn Ford as a young very junior attorney at a law firm in some small Montana town who's not the most forceful fellow around. With a wife and three kids, he can't afford to be. Wife Ruth Roman sees something more in him and convinces him to be more assertive. Ford decides to move the family to Los Angeles where he can work and study to pass the California bar.

The rest of the film is the trials and tribulations they have in Los Angeles, some comic, some serious. Ford shakes off some of his inhibitions, not always in constructive ways.

Glenn Ford is one of the easiest to take actors around and his films reflect that. He's got the art of underplaying down to a science. and Young Man With Ideas is a great example of that.

Look for good supporting performances here, especially from Nina Foch, as a fellow aspiring lawyer, Denise Darcel as a nightclub entertainer, Rith Roman as the wife and Sheldon Leonard as a bookie.

By the way Foch gets Ford a job in a collection agency she works for and some of the film's best moments are from the mild mannered Ford working there.