The Age of Consent

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.

This is a better cultural artifact than a movie . . . but it's a very watchable movie. Catch it on TCM.

The alert is for Richard Cromwell, who plays the young man in what I'll call "a situation" with a townie waitress. He's a pretty good actor I've not seen in any other pictures -- and a 24-carat ringer for Leonardo DiCaprio! Their resemblance is beyond close; it's frightening: looks, body language, the whole package. (I am not a good judge of voices, but I don't think they're too far apart.) . . . Since IMDb is insisting on 10 lines' worth of comment even tho' I'm done, I agree w/ the other posted comments about the snappy yet smarmy pre-Code tone of this movie. That's what makes it such an artifact. If I were Robert Osborne (and we're all SO lucky I'm not), this movie would be double-billed with "The Story of Temple Drake," a bleaker look at the same good-time era starring Miriam Hopkins.

Gregory LaCava directed this 1932 film, The Age of Consent, starring Richard Cromwell, Dorothy Wilson, Aileen Pringle, John Halliday, and Arline Judge.

It's a precode story of kids in college, with lots of talk encouraging young women to loosen their morals, all kinds of sexual innuendo.

Michael (Cromwell) is a young man of high ideals who doesn't appreciate his buddy Duke's (Eric Linden) outrageous flirting and sexy talk, especially when it comes to Michael's girlfriend Betty (Wilson).

He confides to one of the professors (Halliday) that he's thinking of giving up college for marriage. This is evidently because of raging hormones.

When he's caught with an underage waitress, Dora (Judge), after a night of drinking, Dora's father demands they marry at once. This is one of those so subtle blink and you miss it. We are given the impression that they maybe kissed while drunk. I don't think so. She asks, are you sorry - I think they had sex. Other reviewers weren't sure.

The premise seems to be, leave college and get married rather than just shack up. In a way it's odd, since other precodes have people living together before marriage.

Anyway I have a soft spot for Richard Cromwell due to Emma and the fact that he was briefly married to Angela Lansbury. He did not stay in show business. He was a very talented artist and died at 50.

Based upon a play, "The Age of Consent" is a film of ideas. Although it might first seem like just another flippantly written pre-code story about young love, the title is the first clue. The age of consent in a particular jurisdiction is the age at which one can legally consent to sexual acts. Knowing this, the viewer might consider it an allusion to the line between immaturity and maturity that the students of State University ride. They are not yet ready for the responsibilities of adult life, but the educational process asks them to consider the large issues of life.

A stone bench on campus is the second clue to the serious ideas this film explores. "In loco parentis" is a Latin phrase meaning "in the place of a parent" and it is a concept regarding the (if you will, fiduciary) legal role of a college, upon accepting a student in its care, to assume some responsibilities of a parent and, therefore, some legal liabilities. That phrase is carved into this bench, where we see Professor David Matthews (John Halliday) offer parental advice and comfort to student Mike Harvey (Richard Cromwell).

Both legal concepts figure heavily in the story. The campus is a seemingly idyllic setting where students can exist in an ivory tower, away from the harsh realities of the outside world, to explore controversial and abstract ideas, like free love. But innocence resides there with burgeoning passions and the difficulties they present.

The moral relativism that many feared would result from abstract ideas and newer scientific principles, e.g. Darwinism and a revised astronomical view of man's place in the universe, come head to head with the "older" moral certainties of absolutism and church dogma. Will love find a place in the crossfire?

This film features good, sparkling dialogue and some excellent acting. The ending may be a surprise for many viewers.

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!