A rather twee little screwball comedy-drama about the humanizing of a family of cheats, but with a terrific production design. The Flying Wombat, the car Roland Young takes to selling, is a honey, and there are also numerous tasty Art Deco sets. What doesn't quite work is the makeup of the family -- Janet Gaynor, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Roland Young, and Billie Burke barely seem part of the same species, let alone the same family, and their accents are all over the place -- and it strains credibility that each would a) discover a hitherto unrecognized inner talent and b) abandon their avarice over an uninteresting little old lady (Burke's transition is particularly abrupt). As the children's love interests, Richard Carlson and Paulette Goddard show lots more personality than they, especially he, did on other occasions. The pacing is nice and there are some good scenes, but by the end the milk of human kindness has pretty much boiled over. And Gaynor, who begins fetchingly against type as a fortune-huntress, by the end is her little darling, coy self.
Review of The Young in Heart
