The Age of Consent

The title and synopsis suggest that this might be some silly pre-code fluffy nonsense but it's absolutely not! This is a mature and thought provoking drama with naturalistic acting, realistic dialogue giving a shocking insight into who we were in the 1930s.

Hopefully I'm not making it sound like some dry documentary - this is pure slap you in the face type melodrama but also a real education! It explains so much about the attitudes and ideas of the time. What makes it so compelling isn't just the themes it's the likeability and the surprising realism of the characters. Even Eric Linden who's often atrocious is great in this. Likewise, pretty Arline Judge who's pretty awful in other pictures in this, with a good director, is fantastic, channeling her 'inner-Barbara Stanwyck.'

University life in 1932...or really the late twenties when this was written, doesn't seem too different to how it was in my time in the 1980s. Although nobody's arguing about whether Pink Floyd or Yes are best or what to watch on the TV, they're still a) not discussing course work and b) obsessed with sex. It's all weirdly relatable.

The plot, which as I say, explains the attitudes of so many 1930s movies centres on a student who has sex with a waitress....they're caught by her dad who informs the student that she's under-age...so he has two choices according to the law: a) go to jail or b) marry his daughter. Before the eleventh century, if you had sex with someone you were legally married.... times hadn't changed too much had they but this is the 1930s not the Middle Ages! I was staggered that this was the pronouncement of a court.

'But we don't love each other.' they'd argue. 'What's love got to do with marriage?' they'd reply ad though answering the most absurd question ever, 'Marriage isn't about love, it's about doing the right thing.' I guess this explains why so many people in 1930s pictures get married so quickly without really getting to know each other. No sex before marriage wasn't just an idea, it was part of our make-up, one of our unbreakable, unquestionable Ten Commandments.

To a lesser degree, the other topic this pokes into is class. When I was in Oxford there was a distinct line between town and gown. It was either Dr Who or Star Trek where two separate communities existed on the same planet in the same space but were separated somehow so they never knew of each other's existence - Oxford was a bit like that in the eighties but in the late twenties of this film, that segregation was even wider. Only the super-rich could afford to go to university back then so what happened between this testosterone filled student and the randy teenage waitress is an exploration of what happens classes clash - could an entitled son of a millionaire live happily ever after with an 'uneducated' working class daughter of a labourer? Society says they must!

This belongs with those other early thirties pictures such as NIGHT COURT, BABY FACE, SHE HAD TO SAY YES, BAD GIRL etc. Which make you realise that you wouldn't really want to have lived back then.

This little precode film deals with the unfortunate fact that hormonal activity peaks at the same time in life that critical decisions must be made. In this case we have a couple half-way through college - Betty and Mike - that are starting to suffer certain "urges". Mike wants to get married, but Betty thinks that if Mike drops out of college to marry her, he'll regret it someday and she wants them to wait. In the meantime, popular coed Duke Galloway sees an opportunity in this romantic intermission and starts to put the moves on Betty.

All of this angst leads Mike to drink heavily one night and fall for the charms of local waitress Dora Swale. Dora is OK with the fact that this is a one night stand, but just as Mike is getting ready to leave her house, Dora's dad appears, and he is not at all happy about the situation.

If this seems very frank and daring for 1932, it is. There are no big name stars in this film. The biggest name is John Halliday as Professor David Matthews who acts as a father figure to Mike, even though he is given to handing out confusing advice. He and Barbara act as an analog for the possible future Mike and Betty - they were in love and waited to finish their education. After graduation they found that there was nothing to pick up where they had left off, and are now heading into middle age alone. The best lines go to Arline Judge as Dora. She doesn't look like her, but Arline's voice, her movements, and definitely her attitude are precode Stanwyck.

I've already mentioned how things stay the same - the hormonal challenges of late adolescence/early adulthood. How things have changed is the lesson this film seems to teach - that college is optional and even a possible obstacle in seeking true happiness, and maybe it was in 1932 when people married earlier and needed less skill to make a living wage. Today, however, it is an essential rite of passage to a middle class lifestyle, and even then there are no guarantees.

Even for pre-Hayes code cinema, this one is particularly smutty. Not to say there's nudity or whatever, but the sexuality positively drips off the screen, and very little is said which doesn't have to do with intercourse of one sort or another. They probably had fun making this one. Highly recommended if you can find it. Thanks to the American Film Institute for their preserving this film.

The Pre-Code era lasted from about 1930 to mid-1934. During this time, Hollywood had a production code but routinely ignored it. In other words, though they set up a board to oversee films to ensure that they were wholesome, these folks were essentially a rubber stamp for the studios. As a result, all sorts of amazingly adult plots made their way to the big screen. Plots involving abortion, adultery, homosexuality and premarital sex were surprisingly common...that is, until the new and tougher Production Code was enforced starting in July, 1934...after which, films became quite sanitized and wholesome...and occasionally a bit dull or cryptic. In other words movies either needed to be nice and sweet or they needed to talk around subjects...implying much but saying and doing very little.

It's very obvious that "The Age of Consent" is a Pre-Code picture....and it seems to loudly scream that when the story begins. With frequent mentions of sex, petting and lines like "You'd be much nicer is you loosened your morals", you can't help but be shocked at the sort of stuff our grandparents and great-grandparents were watching way back in the day.

The story is set at a sex-crazed college where students never seem to be in classes and mostly spend their time trying to get their dates into the sack. In the case of Mike, he and his girlfriend are interesting because they are clearly being overwhelmed by their hormones...so much so that they debate about dropping out of college in their final year because they can't wait to to the old horizontal mambo. But problems develop when Mike foolishly goes out with another girl...and finds that she's both underage AND her father threatens to press charges unless he marries her! Oddly, it appears in the film as if the pair never really did anything other than drink a bit and stay out late at her house. So what's to become of Mike? Will one night of foolishness destroy his life?

The message to the film is oddly Pre-Code and essentially says that it's a good idea to drop out of college because sex is grand! I am sure some parents back in the day did not appreciate this! Overall, a film that isn't very good but it never is dull!

The Age Of Consent is a terribly dated before the Code film with a Victorian era plot and loaded with sexual innuendo. This would have made a great Cecil B. DeMille silent film.

The Age Of Consent began as a play called Cross Roads which had the misfortune of opening on Broadway within two weeks of the Stock Market crash. After that Broadway closed a lot of shows because folks couldn't afford the theater. Cross Roads only ran 28 performances and Franchot Tone and Sylvia Sidney were in the supporting roles that Eric Linden and Arline Judge play on the screen.

The leads are Richard Cromwell and Dorothy Wilson who are in love and going through a lot of angst. Dorothy's a good kid who doesn't want to give it up before she has a wedding ring on her finger. Richard's even ready to quit school. But when she says no he goes off with the local waitress at the college hangout Arline Judge.

Catching him alone with his daughter puritanical dad Richard Barlow says no one is going to disgrace my daughter, marry her or else because she's still a minor. Poor Cromwell sees his whole life slipping away, all the plans he had for his future, just gone up in smoke.

It all kind of works out for most of the cast. John Halliday is her as the wise science professor who acts as mentor and father figure to the college kids. Barlow's part is interesting his type is still around today, ignorant and proud of it. Look for a young Betty Grable as one of the coeds.

It's an interesting story and typical of the times. But thank God we seem to have moved away from the attitudes expressed by Barlow in The Age Of Consent.