These Wilder Years ** (1956, James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Pidgeon) – Classic Movie Review 7,798

The 1956 American drama film These Wilder Years is only onscreen pairing of James Cagney and Barbara Stanwyck.

Director Roy Rowland’s 1956 drama These Wilder Years is the only teaming of great stars James Cagney and Barbara Stanwyck, who are very welcome, of course, if alas slightly beyond their prime and not in the best vehicle for their talents. It tells the story of a Detroit business tycoon who tries to find the illegitimate son he placed in an orphanage years ago. 

Cagney stars as rich, middle-aged steelman Steve Bradford, who searches for his long-lost illegitimate 20-year-old son, in a soap opera that is remarkably dull for one that teams Cagney with Stanwyck as Ann Dempster, the understanding boss of an orphanage where Bradford placed his son. Bradford now hopes to persuade Dempster to help him find his son, but she refuses.

Somewhat dull it may be, but nevertheless, These Wilder Years does warm up and eventually even transcend its apparently rather humble ambitions, and there is considerable interest in the stars’ professional playing. But it is such a shame that they were not paired in the Thirties.

Don Dubbins plays a young man named Mark Nelson, who eventually and fatefully approaches Steve Bradford.

The screenplay is by Frank Fenton, and Ralph Wheelwright wrote the original story. George J Folsey shoots in black and white.

It flopped at the box office. On a budget $1,257,000, of the film earned a total of $877,000 worldwide, resulting in a loss to MGM of $600,000.

Michael Landon appears as a boy in the pool hall, Tom Laughlin appears as football player on airplane.

Also in the cast are Walter Pidgeon, Betty Lou Keim, Don Dubbins, Edward Andrews, Dean Jones, Basil Ruysdael, Grandon Rhodes, Will Wright, Lewis Martin, Dorothy Adams, Herb Vigran, Jack Kenney, Elizabeth Flournoy, William Forrest, Edna Holland, Janet Lake, Lois Kimball, John Maxwell, Russell Simpson, Sid Tomack, Harry Tyler, Leon Tyler, Louis Towers, Herb Vigran, Billy Wayne, Emmett Vogan, Charles Herbert, Jimmy Hayes, Ruth Lee, and Luana Lee.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7798

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com