Wesley Ruggles, who's given great billing (he was pretty big in the early 1930s), really had a bee up his bonnet when he conceived this diatribe against Flaming Youth. Eric Linden, a good young actor but not here, is the upright high schooler who ventures on the wrong path after delivering a poorly received speech, and turns away from his too-good-to-be-true girlfriend, Rochelle Hudson, and toward loose women and alcohol. Linden can't make the transition convincing, but at least the pace picks up once he starts nightclubbing with bad girl Arline Judge and some other pals. Eventually, drunk and demanding more booze, he (very unconvincingly) shoots the older guy who hangs out with his grandma (Beryl Mercer, playing what she always played) and tries to dodge the cops. What do you think happens? Linden is virtually playing two different kids, Good Eddie and Bad Eddie, and it's impossible to pull off. He does get caught, of course, and recites a weepy Lord's Prayer as he's led off to the chair. Howard Estabrook did a poor adaptation of Ruggles's original story, and despite some arty transitions and striking photography, it's not much of a movie. But hey, maybe it did scare a teen or two from sneaking into speakeasies, or hanging with loose women.
Review of Are These Our Children
