mrsastor

I must agree with the reviewer who said "Dean Jones was just collecting another paycheck," that pretty much sums it up.

I realize this is Disney and did not go into it expecting Oscar worthy drama, but in our home we really enjoyed the earlier films "The Absent-Minded Professor" and "The Shaggy Dog". Family friendly, and entertaining for the adults as well as the kids, as were a number of Disney films throughout the late 1950's to the 1970's.

"The Ugly Dachshund" does not measure up. I recently found the DVD for only a few dollars and remembered going to see this at the drive-in back when it was new. And we had dachshunds back in the 1960's, so I was expecting some happy memory associations. What a disappointment. There are a few cute sequences of the dogs making a mess out of the house, nothing that hasn't been captured equally well on television sitcoms of the day. Outside of this, the story is boring, the couple don't like each other and are trapped in an unhappy marriage, the film manages to drudge up remarkably little sympathy for even the dogs.

I don't think we'll watch this one again anytime soon. If you're looking for wholesome Disney family films of this era, I'd recommend The Shaggy Dog, Freaky Friday, The World's Greatest Athelete, or even The Barefoot Executive. All of them far better than this trouser cloud. This one is a dull and unhappy expenditure of 90 minutes with little entertainment to offer.

Youth Runs Wild is an unusually good film for this genre, and given it's short running time and engaging story-telling, I recommend it.

Most Hollywood films of the war era make every effort to depict American family life on the home-front as unrealistically perfect. Those filmmakers who strayed from this prerequisite story often found their efforts on the cutting room floor. Conversely, Youth Runs Wild makes an honest and enjoyable effort to depict the more flawed reality and with a storyline that is not too marred by the passage of time. Our story here deals with what at the time was a relatively new problem in America; parents called away from their household and family obligations to support the war effort and leaving adolescent and even younger children with insufficient supervision. The resulting consequences could just as easily serve as a warning to the parents of today called away from their obligations far too frequently in the less justifiable quest to obtain material possessions.

For what is essentially an exploitive low-budget second-feature, Youth Runs Wild must be credited for its excellent casting. Both A-Listers and unknowns impart depth and warmth to their characters, and the largest contributing factor to the film's impressive honesty is that none of these people are purely good or purely evil.

I think the most touching and heartbreaking event in our story occurs when Danny's parents force him to end his relationship with his girlfriend next door, Sarah. This is exactly the kind of situation that occurs in many a home in real life. Danny has become truant from school, begun to get into all kinds of trouble, and is developing a real surly attitude at home. Sarah's parents would not be considered a good influence by anyone, Danny's parents naturally presume the apple does not fall far from the tree and blame Sarah for Danny's delinquency and forbid him to see her anymore. While entirely well intentioned, it is the worst thing that happens to him in the whole film, they have removed the most positive influence from Danny's life and nothing good comes of it.

The character of Sarah is well played by an unknown Vanessa Brown. This type of character was often given to Cathy O'Donnell, who would never have been able to give Sarah the underlying level of pathos that Ms. Brown does. Once Danny is removed from her life, Sarah attaches herself to the local bad girl, Toddy – played by Bonita Granville who is always wonderful in this type of role. Toddy leads her into a sordid nightlife, badly sanitized to meet 1940's standards of acceptability, but I think even contemporary audiences knew the life Toddy led her to was not being a simple "hostess", but a shill for a clip joint and probably eventually prostitution. Toddy does, after all, live rather well for an essentially orphaned girl in small town middle America.

It might not stand up to repeated viewings for some, and as others have pointed out, Turner Classic Movies' print of Youth Runs Wild is rather beat-up looking; but I would describe this as unusually good work for this particular genre and certainly worth investing an hour of your time. Honest and thought-provoking character film.

This campy little coo-coo bird has to be seen to be believed. Beware of anonymously sent bouncy balls. I first saw this film many years ago on the early American Movie Classics (before it was destroyed by commercials and awful movies); I made of point of watching it because I was reading Myrna Loy's autobiography at the time and she mentioned this film.

Modern viewers may be a bit surprised to find that there is really nothing new in film-making; everything in the psychological thrillers and slasher films over the years that terrified you is done here, and better. Like the rest of the reviewers, I am nearly insane with wonder at what the famous missing 15 minutes might hold (I know a scene further developing the Peg Entwistle character was deleted), but the existing version of this film is a tight, entertaining hour of suspense.

Exotic and beautiful Ursula Georgi sets out across America to reek her revenge on those upper crust white gals that ousted her from her school sorority and ruined her chance in life to "pass" as one of the elite. If you can actually locate the book this is based on, it's a very enlightening read, for therein we learn that poor Ursula was whored out as a young girl. An orphanage finally placed in her in the sorority with the rich white girls to save her from her life of degradation and exploitation. I believe Ms. Loy must have read the novel, she plays Ursula with a clear awareness of the horrors of her young past. By ostracizing and then kicking her out of the sorority, the rich snobs destroyed her chance to escape and live among the rich and respectable. No wonder she is murderously furious with them. A round robin letter, horoscopes of dread, the stink-eye from Ursula and former sorority sisters end up in the obituary column one by one.

Even today, this hour long film is tensely paced and engaging. Ricardo Cortez is always a pleasure to watch, a smooth, beautiful man and a superb actor who brings a touch of class to all of his work. Young Myrna Loy is beginning to show the prowess that would make her one of the most successful of all 20th century actors. If you love 1930's films, this is a very unique and interesting one, you won't be sorry.