Young Bride

The great thing about Turner Classic Movies is that no matter how many old movies you have seen, you will regularly come across actors and actresses whose names you have never heard before, but once you see them, are fascinated, and glad to make their acquaintance. So it was with the beautiful and oddly named Helen Twelvetrees. She was a very good blond actress whose career barely spanned the decade of the 1930's. Here, in "Young Bride", she is delicate and vulnerable, but not in an annoying weak way; she has a face full of beautiful character, one that you want to comfort and murmur to how everything will be alright. A lovely find, and too bad she was not a major star.

On the other hand, I have never been a fan of Eric Linden, who plays her immature braggart of a husband. I think it is that horrendous Bronx accent of his; even when he is playing sympathetic, which is rare in this film, I just don't find him to be all that appealing. I don't think I was the only one who felt this way, as his career dried up quickly as the 1930's moved on.

A very interesting cultural aspect of this film is how so much of it takes place in a "dance hall"; this is a public tavern where men came and bought tickets to dance with the female hired help. It appears that there was a great demand for these kinds of establishments, as a way for men to meet girls and socialize in a pre-TV and pre-Internet Depression-era society. Particularly fascinating is that it seems that at a certain weird level, open lewd behavior was strictly prohibited; at one point in this film, the fellow who is in charge of watching the dancers sternly calls to Eric Linden to "keep your feet moving"! (ie - no hanky-panky on the floor!) I wonder if such places really existed. Certainly this is a portrait of an urban America that died a long long time ago...

When not in the dance halls or Twelvetree's apartment, most scenes take place in a public library. Isn't that a weird combination? Throw in the fabulously stuttering Roscoe Ates as a bartender and you have a unique, slightly odd movie that, primarily thanks to the delightful screen presence of Helen Twelvetrees, is worthy of an hour and a quarter of your time.

... so this is a bit more than your run of the mill precode.

Allie Smith (Helen Twelvetrees) is an assistant librarian in New York CIty. She agrees to be fourth wheel on a blind double date with Charlie Riggs (William Janney). Charlie talks as big as the biggest bag of wind you've ever seen, but Allie is rather idealistic and naive and she believes he has done all of the things and been all of the places he talks about. They marry, but starting on her honeymoon the truth begins to become obvious. Charlie is exaggerating if not lying about everything. Settling into married life, Allie continues to work and Charlie's idea of looking for work is chasing the next big deal that will never be. And then Allie discovers she is pregnant. Complications ensue.

Eric Linden usually played conscientious younger brothers or loyal husbands such as he did in "Life Begins", so it is odd seeing him here as a complete jerk, but he is very effective. His character seems to genuinely care for Allie, he just can't divest himself of his fantasies about his own business acumen. I imagine Depression audiences could relate to the two main characters losing their illusions about life, themselves, and each other as time and bad circumstances wear on. Arline Judge has a supporting role here as a very wicked selfish dance hall girl/barfly. To see her range watch "College Scandal" in which she plays a level headed coed on the trail of a murderer.

I'd recommend this one. It really surprised me as having more complexity and depth than I would have figured from the synopses - all of which are pretty much wrong - and the title and cast.

It seems like half of all films made in the early thirties used this same story - this one however does it really well and gives you a real authentic taste of early thirties life in the big city. Nothing exciting happens, there's no great revelations, there's no scathing indictments on society - it's basically just a soap but it's so well made it transports you mind and body back in time. Any picture featuring a taxi dance hall ticks my box!

Most surprising thing about this is that Eric Linden is actually good in it - on the level, no kidding! Eric Linden was often typecast as pathetic weaklings such as his limp and nauseatingly naïve 'Bud' in BIG CITY BLUES. He was usually so annoyingly pathetic that when he was playing Cagney's kid brother in THE CROWD ROARS, you wanted him to crash. This film however shows he could act! He really does convey the necessary levels of arrogance and selfishness required to make his self-obsessed waste of space both totally unlikeable and believable. At first it seems a bit weird watching him do a third rate Cagney impersonation but after a while you grow to accept it.

In the stage version of this role of 'Good Time Charlie' was taken by young Spencer Tracy whom you could imagine would have been a natural for this but Linden rises admirably to the challenge. His usually hidden acting skill gets you to really dislike his character immediately. He's not nasty, he's not a bad person, he's just a complete and utter botty hole. He's the sort of person that even the Delai Lama would want to punch in the face. As to why sweet Helen Twelvetrees, even though she's meant to have had a sheltered life, falls for him is beyond me.....but mis-matches like this clearly existed. That was life..... and that was one of the criticisms at the time. Contemporary reviews complained that it's just an everyday story of everyday life...... that however is exactly what makes this so watchable ninety years later!

Helen Twelvetrees plays the role she found herself often typecast into playing: that of the sweet and trusting naive long suffering wife but maybe she got typecast in such roles because she was so good at playing them. She's absolutely adorable in this and manages to engender real emotion in you. It's a great shame this lovely young lady worked for financially crippled RKO, or rather RKO-Pathé as it was then because when Selznick jumped ship, she was one of the many actors whom the company could no longer afford to keep - had circumstances been different, she might have been one of the great actresses. This pretty mundane but moving slice of life as a good example of how good she could be.

The forgotten Helen Twelvetrees is effective as a lonely children's librarian who falls for a small-time, big-talking guy beneath her station. He is played interestingly by the really forgotten Eric Linden. The floozy is Arline Judge, and she is great. She makes us want to smack her.

An antique that holds up quite well.

This is a moving narrative, sensitively directed by William A. Seiter, about a naive librarian (Helen Twelvetrees) who is swept off her feet and into marriage by a handsome but aggressive, egotistical suitor (Eric Linden) only to find he is all strut and no substance. This early effort by producer David O. Selznick boasts: a) persuasive performances by the five main characters (Arline Judge as a treacherous dance hall tart, Cliff Edwards ["Well, peel my potatoes!" "Well, spank me naked!"] as a good-time Charley and Blanche Frederici as the librarian's spinsterish friend and co-worker give excellent support); b - realistic renderings of a public library, a depressing room in a boarding house, and especially a funky dance hall above a Chop Suey joint where young couples crowd the floor shimmying, fox-trotting or waltzing to the popular songs of the day played to perfection by a small orchestra; (c) entertainingly slangy dialogue and pre-Code sexual frankness. This is one of the few films of its era that speaks directly and unsentimentally across the decades about issues faced by any young couple of modest means struggling to pay the bills while maintaining a loving, trusting relationship. All newlyweds should see this! Others have detailed the plot, but I shall say only that Linden and Twelvetrees were two of the best young performers of their time. Their careers flared brilliantly for about three years, then faded into oblivion. Here, they will both make you cry.