Are These Our Children (1931) User Reviews

good Depression era teen age melodrama pre-code

[mush-2 · 7/10 · 21 June 2003]

This very obscure film turned up on Turner Classic movies at 6AM recently. It was definitely worth watching for it's fascinating portrait of bored, lower middle class, high school- juvenile delinquents. The plot itself is melodramatic and not too impressive: Eric Linden plays a 17 year old who is being raised by his loving but annoying,worry wart grandmother(whom he calls Ma in a thick Noo Yawk accent). Eric becomes a ringleader of a wild crowd who drink and party all night at local dance clubs.The movie is extremely frank in it's depiction of teen age sexuality. Arline Judge, who looks a bit like Winona Ryder, plays his trampy bed partner who is also screwing one of his buddies who is also one of the group. On one drunken spree, Eric murders his old family friend who is known as Hiney. A media circus ensues as Eric goes on trial and begins to believe all of the tabloid publicity. He does stupid,unbelievable things like dismiss his attorney in mid trial, but he almost gets away with murder until one of his pals betrays him.SPOILER_ SPOILER

The movie ends surprisingly with Eric's execution-perhaps this is a warning to the young audience-don't let this happen to you! I liked a lot of things in this movie: This is definitely a pre-code and the movie lets us know that these teens are all having sex with each other. Arline Judge is very sexy and charismatic. Why wasn't she a bigger star? There is a great scene of Eric looking down her blouse that leaves nothing to the imagination. I also appreciated the conclusion which is not a happy one. Linden, an actor who is often grating and weak here gives a super performance as the tough kid. In spite of his mistakes, you always like him. But most of all, I loved the depiction of the kids of the Depression. Aside from their choice of dance music and clothes, these kids are no different from today's kids or I suspect, will they be any different from kids of tomorrow.Their main activities are sex, drugs( alcohol) and dancing. The movie even has an adult cluck disapprovingly and mutter,"Kids today...!" This movie is a fascinating peek into Early Depression era life. It is a fast moving melodrama that is definitely worth watching.

Bad movie; interesting time capsule

[twhiteson · 5/10 · 22 May 2016]

"Are These Our Children?" is an exploitation film from the early 1930's- be on the look-out for your good, little girls and boys turning into alcohol and sex besotted "flappers" and "sheiks." Titillating pre-code nonsense meant to draw in the kids to the box-office.

The plot: NYC high school student, Eddie Brand (Eric Linden), is seemingly a "swell" guy who lives with his elderly grandmother (Beryl Mercer) and kid brother. He has a nice, sweet girlfriend, "Mary" (Rochelle Hudson), and he's about to win a coveted position on his school debate/student council team. But then he doesn't win. Horror of horrors! So, Eddie falls apart. In the aftermath of his defeat, he immediately starts hanging with the "bad" crowd who hang-out at the local jazz-dance club. A loose flapper-girl within this group, "Flo"(Arline Judge), seduces Eddie into booze and sex. (We know Flo and her friends are "bad" girls because they drink and while sitting they cross their legs and hike-up their skirts to expose their knees.) Apparently, drinking and pre-marital sex can lure a nice boy into a life of crime as Eddie starts to supplement his income through unknown illicit ventures.

Eventually, a drunken Eddie and his "sheik" friends, "Nick" and "Bennie," murder a deli owner while searching for "hooch." For some reason, this two-bit crime dominates the NYC tabloid headlines for weeks while the cops search for the killers. They're caught and put on trial. And for some reason, the NYC tabloids are fascinated that the accused killers are young males!?!? Eddie and his pals become tabloid fodder. The fame goes to Eddie's head which leads him to take over his own defense. Needless to say, even pre-Code films wouldn't allow a smarmy, egoist killer like Eddie to get away with it.

Overall, this is low-budget exploitation fare that its studio hoped to make a quick buck-on. The plot is absurd- if only Eddie had performed better during that school event! The writing, acting, and directing are nothing special. The best one can about it is that Eric Linden does as well as he can with the material and the flapper girls, especially Ms. Judge, are very cute.

However, as seen as a time capsule into the teen world of the early 1930's it's actually pretty interesting. Teens drinking, partying, and having sex. Of course, it doesn't show Eddie and Flo actually doing the deed, but it's more than hinted that they're physically intimate with each other. The clothes and hairstyles are certainly different and musical tastes have changed, but human beings really don't change much. Teens acted like teens in 1931.

THIS is why everyone should get a trophy!

[chiknmac · 7/10 · 19 October 2018]

As you watch "Are These Our Children?" two thoughts will inevitably cross your mind: (1) Imagine how much different things would turn out if Eddie had been given a trophy in the high school speech competition and: (2) How the heck was such a formulaic film have such solid cinematography?

Alas, we'll never know the answer to No. 1, but No. 2 is because of the skills of Leo Tover. One heckuva shooter who made more chicken salad out of chicken s**t than a corner delicatessen, Tover went on to earn two Academy Award nominations. You probably know him for his work on "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and "Journey To The Center Of The Earth," but this is where he built his chops.

Laugh at the script if you wish (and it is amusing that the teen thugs used to hang out at the Chop Suey dance hall) and what a weasel Bennie was, but when it came to how this story was presented, it was all business.

By the way, if you wonder where you have seen Eric Linden before, he was the principal character in the most depressing part of "Gone With The Wind" (aside from Scarlett's mule dying) ... he was the unfortunate Confederate who had to have his leg amputated without chloroform. Perhaps knowing that's what his future held made Eric a bit more stoic as he faced his fate in "Are These Our Children?"

see ARLINE JUDGE (the "naughty" Clara Bow) of the 1930's

[machineel · 5 September 2000]

This film is stolen by bad girl ARLINE JUDGE as "Flo Carnes" (see pun in name: FLOWER MEAT) -- and when she calls Eric Linden "big boy" in her inimitable growling voice, she means business! My favorite scene is when she is putting on lipstick, covers half her face with her purse and all you see are her HUGE BULGING eyes on a really angry Eric while she mutters, "NO? YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AT CONEY ISLAND!" to a very naive Mary Kornman who just told her, "Awwwwwww, you can't have him!" This film evokes, presumably, Depression era teen angst. Miss Judge also sings a few saucy lines of "MAKES YOU FORGET YOUR TROUBLES" accompanied by a black jazz band, leaving no doubt as to her meaning. She even "marks" Eric (like a cat) by squirting perfume on him after she sings. Lots of PRE-CODE wardrobe and suggestive dialogue. A MUST SEE.

Entertaining pre-Code fare

[gbill-74877 · 7/10 · 15 November 2019]

Surprisingly interesting for a morality tale with that blaring, sensationalistic title, and for the relatively poor quality print that was a little fuzzy. It's definitely a B picture too, with no big names, acting that's often stilted, and a direction to its plot that's too predictable. The young kids these days! What with their listening to jazz music, dancing late at night, and their carousing about! We know what that leads to ... drinking, crime, and murder right? It tickles me to see references to the depravity of the younger generation in each and every age, whether it be in film or literature, and this one takes it to an extreme.

One of the entertaining aspects was the dialogue of the young kids, and no one delivers it any better than Arline Judge. I love her voice and how she flirts with the main character, played by Eric Linden. Nothing is ever shown, but it's clear she sleeps around from the beginning, as she tells her friends "you don't know what happened at Coney Island," with her piercing eyes over the purse she has in front of her face. She calls him "big boy" in a way far more alluring that Mae West ever was, and then after an amusing scene with the flappers and sheiks out on the dance floor, we see her pulling at the top of her blouse rapidly to fan herself. This exchange follows:

Flo (Arline Judge): "Phew, am I hot." Eddie (Eric Linden): "I'll say you're hot." Flo: "Feel?" She grabs his hand and uses it to pat down her chest, giving him the subtlest of winks and a smile in the process. Eddie: "Uh oh, a hundred and eight." She then pulls her blouse forward and then looking downward, blows down her chest, practically inviting him to see. Eddie: (laughing) "Say, did the doctor tell you to watch your stomach?"

This is shortly before examining his chest and observing that he doesn't wear undershirts, and letting him know how attracted she is to him. "You got the stuff that gets 'em, boy," she says. She's also magnetic while on the witness stand later, giving wide eyed answers to the prosecutor before telling him off.

Eric Linden (age 22 playing 18) is not bad himself, with a baby-faced earnestness and look that's reminiscent of James Cagney (and it's notable that he would star with Cagney the following year as his little brother in 'The Crowd Roars'). His interactions with the media before the trial reminded me of Martin Sheen in Terrence Malick's film 'Badlands,' and he's strong in the courtroom when his character elects to cross-examine witnesses himself.

The film is pretty creaky early on, with a slow start that feels quaint, including Eddie calling his virtuous girlfriend (Rochelle Hudson) on the phone out in the hallway after walking home. It picks up as it goes along though, with surprisingly decent cinematography as well as dialogue with expressions that evoke the era. The transitions between scenes are interesting, with newspapers and spirals that ominously signal the downward path the young man is on. The film's low-budget feel sometimes works in its favor; the scene where the six hooligans are horsing around and sliding down a bannister while drunk has one of them really slipping but landing on his feet, giving it an air of danger and authenticity. Unfortunately the ending is more than a little heavy handed, with an overwrought prayer accompanied by the dramatic singing of a choir in the background, which was a bit much. I'm rounding up a bit out of my own interest for pre-Code films, the snappy dialogue, Eric Linden, and Arline Judge.

Couple of other quotes, while Judge's character tries to convince Linden's to have a drink: Flo (Arline Judge): "Come on, make yourself interesting, won't you? Have a drink." Eddie (Eric Linden): "I'm getting along all right, I don't need any hooch." Flo: "Well, you be that way and everbody'll hate ya." Eddie: "Oh, I'm all right." Flo: "I'll say you're all right, honey."

Later she'll sing into his ear, "it makes you forget your troubles, it makes you forget you're sad, it makes you feel good and confident..."

The Road to Damnation

[richardchatten · 6/10 · 18 December 2016]

The title suggests an earnest silent drama about wayward youth, and for all its ample pre-Code trappings much of this film feels like a remake of a silent film, including the flashy optical effects and Eddie's incredible final discovery of God in the condemned cell at the film's conclusion. His road to ruin is vividly if preachily conveyed with the assistance of smooth direction by Wesley Ruggles and Leo Tover's excellent photography; but it's after he's arrested that the film really comes to life when he seems more exhilarated with his burgeoning celebrity in court than concerned by the fact that he's on trial for his life. The law - as is habitually the case in a remarkable number of Hollywood films - is portrayed as cynical and venal. In the person of Ralf Harolde and Harry Shutan the prosecution and defense councils make an unlovely pair; the latter is introduced showing far more interest in what assets Eddie's sweet little grandmother Beryl Mercer (fresh from played James Cagney's sweet little mother in 'The Public Enemy') can realise in order to pay him than in the case itself. Despite the fact that we know Eddie is guilty he does such an able job of defending himself in court he seems to be cruising towards an acquittal until the script finds it necessary to intervene by having his partner in crime Nick's nerve conveniently fail him in the witness box and spilling the beans.

Sins of the Children

[lugonian · 6/10 · 27 October 2018]

ARE THESE OUR CHILDREN (RKO Radio, 1931), written and directed by Wesley Ruggles, is an early sound depiction of troubled youths that would be commonly themed later in the decade and beyond. Not a Warner Brothers programmer nor a realistic story directed by William A. Wellman, who specialized in this sort of material, this edition credits Wesley Ruggles for something in similar fashion and style. Though cast by younger actors playing high school students, the story shows a dramatic turn of a nice young man who becomes a different sort of individual after getting himself involved with the wrong type of crowd.

FORWARD: "Youth - love- and happiness - these make the world go round ... to all each day comes choice -- even how we must decide in one way leads to shadows - the other into peace and light." Set somewhere in New York City, the story introduces Eddie Brand (Eric Linden), a young 18-year-old high school student, sitting together on the stoop with Mary (Rochelle Hudson) at her apartment building. Eddie lives across town in a tenement apartment with his grandmother, Mrs. Martin (Beryl Mercer), and his kid brother, Bobby (Billy Butts), who always asks him for dimes. After losing out in a contest at his school. Eddie becomes bitter with ideas of quitting school and going to work. Instead, he meets up with Flo Carnes (Arline Judge), a wild party girl, who takes an interest in him. Accompanied by her friends, Maybelle (Roberta Gale) and Ernestine (Mary Kornmann), Eddie joins them with his friends, Nick Crosby (Ben Alexander) and Bennie Gray (Robert Quirk) at jazz clubs and dancing parties with other juveniles where they end up boozing up liquor and smoking cigarettes. With this becoming habit forming, Eddie neglects nice girl Mary for the flirtatious Flo, and angering his grandmother by returning home way past midnight in a drunken state in a "don't tell me what to do!" attitude. Feeling he's now a man, he can do anything he wants, quitting jobs, obtaining extra money through robberies, and becoming more dependent on liquor. After becoming involved in a Jamaica (Queens) murder, he and his friends are later arrested and put to trial, which becomes more of a big joke for Eddie.

ARE THESE OUR CHILDREN might have been about the juvenile delinquents set in February 1931, but centers more on the IS HE MY SON? title instead. Eddie Brand, performed by Eric Linden, in his movie debut. Though noted for playing weaklings or kid brothers, Linden never became a top-rank star attraction, though he did give some fine performances in latter movie roles as in Warner Brothers 1932 releases of LIFE BEGINS, BIG CITY BLUES and THE CROWD ROARS. He was exceptional in AH! WILDERNESS (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1935) starring Lionel Barrymore, as the son who experiences life after high school. By the end of the decade, Linden drifted to poverty row studio films and bit parts before his retirement by 1941.

As much as Linden somehow didn't seem quite right as the good boy gone bad role, possibly due to his baby face, he did the best he could to make his character believable. Beryl Mercer, best known as James Cagney's mother in THE PUBLIC ENEMY (Warners, 1931), performs similar chores here as the caring grandmother who refuses to accept the fact that her grandson has gone down the wayward path. Also in the cast are William Orlamond (Heinie Kranz, a deli owner and friend of the family); Ralf Harolde (District Attorney); Wallis Clark (Prosecuting Attorney); and Reginald Barlow (The Judge).

Wesley Ruggles keeps the pace moving during its 84 minutes with Josef Von Sternberg-type directorial techniques with superimpose scene changes, along with style of his own ranging from character introduction of Eddie and Mary entered above movable hearts, along with circular twirls indicating moving forward to another time-frame. Max Steiner's conducted underscoring helps through the proceedings as well.

My introduction to ARE THESE OUR CHILDREN happened to be not by watching this on public or cable television, but at New York City's Museum of Modern Art movie department in New York City during its tribute to RKO Radio's 50th anniversary in 1979. Regardless of its age, it did have a good attendance for a nearly crowded theater viewing this long forgotten drama that probably has never been televised. There were some laughs at corny opening sequence along with gasp at a shooting of one of the characters in the story being my recollection by reaction of others in attendance.

The movie may be a depiction of troubled youths of the time, but one wonders if this to be a forerunner to similar films that proved favorable in later years, particular in the 1930s and especially the 1950s with the likes of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) and BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955) as prime examples. Had ARE THESE OUR CHILDREN been remade in the 1940s, maybe "Dead End Kid" star, Billy Halop, might have been a logical choice for the lead, or the 1950s with upgraded material and stronger modern acting style by James Dean. Or maybe it be best to leave well-enough alone.

Formerly presented on American Movie Classics prior to 2000, and occasionally broadcast on Turner Classic Movies, ARE THESE OUR CHILDREN, somewhat dramatic and little depressing, remains a curiosity drama from the time capsule, or a rediscovery of Eric Linden in one of his few top-billed roles. (**1/2)

What's the matter with kids today?

[marcslope · 4/10 · 21 June 2019]

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.

Introduced Three New Stars!!!!

[kidboots · 8/10 · 13 May 2010]

Eric Linden's cinema debut as the egotistical punk Eddie Brand, drew superlative reviews from the critics. His film career started so brightly, but his best performances (ie "Life Begins" (1932), "The Silver Cord" (1933)) came early in his career and some of his later ones proved disappointing. Big things were also expected of two other newcomers - Adorable Rochelle Hudson played "good" girl Mary and she did have a reasonable career playing - what else - "sweet young things". Although she is mostly remembered for playing Shirley Temple's big sister in "Curly Top"(1935), she also gave her voice to "Honey" in the Bosko cartoon series. Arline Judge played Flo, the baby vamp and continued to play the same role in various movies - "Girl Crazy" (1931), "Sensation Hunters" (1933) etc, until she left films at the end of the thirties to concentrate on marriage and divorce. There is no way she could ever be compared or even come close to the incomparable Clara Bow, no matter what other reviewers may think. Others in the cast were an unbilled Ralf Harolde as the prosecutor and the original "Our Gang" sweetheart Mary Kornman.

Eddie Brand is on top of the world - he has the love of adorable Mary and is the apple of his Grandma's eye. (Beryl Mercer performs with real restraint and gives an excellent performance). "You are going to hear from me one day" - "I'm going to be somebody", prophetic words that Eddie, already with the beginnings of an egotistical temperament, is always saying. When he misses out on representing the class in an oratory contest he sinks into a depression and falls victim to the school vamp, Flo. (Arline Judge and Eric Linden became quite a movie team of sorts, she vamping him in "Young Bride" (1932) and "The Age of Consent" (1932)). She introduces him to the seedy side of school life - jazz bands, bootleg hooch and easy money - the kind not earned by working Saturdays at his part time job!!! Time passes and he becomes a bragging ring leader, ditching sweet Mary and home life on the way. While out on a booze hunting spree Eddie and his pals break into an old family friend, Heinie's, delicatessen and Eddie, in a drunken fight, kills the elderly gentleman.

The film comes into it's own during the court room scenes when to Eddie's egotistical delight, he finally becomes someone that reporters want for the front page of their paper. He fires his lawyer, he is convinced he can represent himself and he seems to be on the right track, but when he foolishly puts his friend Nick on the stand, Nick, who has been riddled with guilt and remorse, confesses the truth - that all three boys are guilty!!! (Ben Alexander, who plays Nick, had been a child actor in the 20s and ended up as Sgt. Joe Friday's right hand man in "Dragnet"). Eric Linden has some really fine moments - when Nick breaks down, Eddie becomes hysterical and during the last scene when as a condemned man he recites the Lords Prayer (which apparently bought most cinema audiences to tears). Eric Linden once said "I played the real me in the end. The boy who said the Lord's Prayer was Eric Linden".

Highly Recommended.

Not Mine

[boblipton · 6/10 · 12 April 2022]

This was a crusading against corruption thing, with performances that didn't quite hit the mark. It's worth noting that Louis Calhern plays a crooked lawyer in much the same way he would almost two decades later in The Asphalt Jungle, but the character here is a smirking, one-dimensional weasel.

I was going to give this a "watchable" but about two thirds of the way through, there is a scene in which they give Eric Linden the third degree (having recently seen ARE THESE OUR CHILDREN?, I thought he deserved it), when suddenly a light bulb hanging from the ceiling is set wobbling, the shadows come out and you remember that Karl Freund is the DP. Freund transforms this average picture into something very good. With ur-noir techniques.

And to think...Eddie turned to a life of sin and depravity all because he lost a speech contest in high school!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 20 May 2016]

This film is very similar to the exploitation films made by small studios during the 1930s, though this one has a bit more polish and a glossier look since it's from RKO. But like these super-cheap productions, the acting is suspect, the writing very suspect and the overall film rather stupid. I know that the other reviews (so far) have enjoyed the movie but I can't see what they saw in this dopey film.

When the film begins, Eddie is living in a nice home and life is grand. He's practicing for a speech contest about the Constitution but when it doesn't go well, he literally becomes a drunken jerk almost immediately! His new friends bring out the worst in him and his transformation is so rapid and so ridiculous that you can't help but laugh. It's more like "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" than a realistic film about youth gone wild! Where does all this end? Well, you are told at the onset that Eddie would face the death penalty...so it isn't like there's any suspense about the movie.

The film is anything but subtle. While it's not as ridiculous as trash films like "Sex Madness" and "Reefer Madness", it's not a whole lot better and comes off like one of these movies combined with "The Public Enemy"! In fact, it's often unintentionally very funny such as when Eddie (Eric Linden) is supposed to be drunk! Likewise, the final emotional scene is supposed to elicit tears...and I just felt a strong need to laugh! An awfully stupid film that apparently is a lesson warning us of the dangers of public speaking contests!