We Who Are Young ** (1940, Lana Turner, John Shelton, Gene Lockhart, Grant Mitchell, Henry Armetta) – Classic Movie Review 6716

Lana Turner and John Shelton star as young office workers Margy and Bill, who break the rules of the firm that they both work for by secretly marrying, and then get into financial difficulty when Margy is fired from her job and nearly divorced as Bill desperately tries to make ends meet and Margy finds she is pregnant.

Director Harold S Bucquet’s under-achieved 1940 romantic drama movie is all rather slack and sloppy, soapy and sentimental, with mildly comic and equally mildly dramatic proceedings. The lovely ‘Sweater Girl’ Turner is shaky in an early serious role and Shelton does not cut much ice, though Dalton Trumbo’s careful screenplay is an asset.

Distinguished German producer Seymour Nebenzahl [Nebenzal] is making his Hollywood debut after working with Fritz Lang on M and later in France on Mayerling (1936).

Also in the cast are Gene Lockhart, Grant Mitchell, Henry Armetta, Jonathan Hale, Clarence Wilson, Horace MacMahon [McMahon], Ian Wolfe, Hal K Dawson, John Butler, Irene Seidner, Charles Lane, Jack Rice, Harry Hayden, Edgar Dearing and Grady Sutton.

We Who Are Young runs 80 minutes, is written by Dalton Trumbo, shot by Karl Freund and John F Seitz (uncredited), produced by Seymour Nebenzahl [Nebenzal] and scored by Bronislau Kaper and Daniele Amfitheatrof (uncredited), with Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons.

John Shelton (1915–1972) plays Bill in We Who Are Young.

John Shelton (1915–1972) never became a charismatic star of the magnitude of Turner, and quit films in the 1954 for a career in business.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6716

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