As Young as You Feel (1951)

DIRECTOR Harmon Jones

Monty Woolley, Thelma Ritter, David Wayne, David Wayne, Constance Bennett, Marilyn Monroe, Allyn Joslyn, Albert Dekker, Clinton Sundberg, Minor Watson, Wally Brown, Russ Tamblyn

This film was indeed a mildly amusing comedy and one's acceptance of it will depend on one's affection for Monty Wooley. But I was fascinated by the credits. It's part of the feel-good type of movies of the early 1950s. The story is by a young Paddy Chakevsky, who would later write Marty, A Catered Affair, The Goddess, The Americanization of Emily, Hospital, Network, and Altered States, and the screenplay is by Lamar Trotti, who wrote the screenplays for John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln and Drums Along the Mohawk, for Ox Bow Incident, and won the screenplay Oscar for Wilson in 1944. A lot of talent in a thimble. It might be interesting to compare this screenplay to their other works for similarities. Chakevsky's work later became sharp and hard and even bitter. But his Marty, Catered Affair, and maybe even this show a gentle, humorous side. Trotti would die the next year, so this is one of his last screenplays