WE WHO ARE YOUNG (1940)

A sad little social drama which feels like a B-movie remake of the silent classic THE CROWD. John Shelton is a young man who works in an accounting department; he sees himself as a go-getter, anxious to "lick this city," and he has worked out a multi-page production plan that he thinks will get him somewhere, though his boss (Gene Lockhart) keeps putting off reading it. Shelton marries secretary Lana Turner even though there is a company rule against such marriages, and they manage to keep it secret for a while, but when Lockhart finds out, he fires Turner. She becomes pregnant, and Shelton gets behind in loan payments, leading to the repossession of all their furniture and the loss of his job (Lockhart's mantra is "A rule broken ceases to be a rule"). The rest of the film follows Shelton on a downward spiral: getting his CPA certification but not finding a job, going on relief (which hurts his self-esteem), and finally snapping and going violent at a construction site when he begs for a job but is ignored. However, the construction boss (Jonathan Hale), seeing a little of himself in Shelton, gives him a job. When Turner is about to give birth, Shelton steals a car to get her to the hospital. The car owner decides not to press charges, Turner delivers twins, and even Lockhart has a change of heart. Dalton Trumbo, the Hollywood left-winger who was one was one of the more famous victims of the blacklist, wrote this and anyone looking for evidence of socialist messages would find plenty: the word "capitalist" is flung as an insult, and the main moral of the story's last 20 minutes is that "it takes help to make it." Shelton is colorless and unattractive, and at times hard to sympathize with; Turner is good, as is Lockhart. Familiar supporting faces include Grant Mitchell, Clarence Wilson, and Charles Lane. The happy ending feels fake as political propaganda trumps art. [TCM]