Mad Youth

1939
A
1h 16m

IMDb RATING

4.9/10

312

YOUR RATING

Play trailer1:03

1 Video

15 Photos

Drama

A rich society mother hires a male escort, but he falls for her daughter instead. The mother-daughter conflict forces the daughter to run off to stay with a friend who is enslaved by a prost... Read allA rich society mother hires a male escort, but he falls for her daughter instead. The mother-daughter conflict forces the daughter to run off to stay with a friend who is enslaved by a prostitution ring.A rich society mother hires a male escort, but he falls for her daughter instead. The mother-daughter conflict forces the daughter to run off to stay with a friend who is enslaved by a prostitution ring.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

4.9/10

312

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Videos1

Trailer 1:03

Official Trailer

Photos14

User reviews19

4.9312

Featured reviews

6jdfoster-1

pretty good

I enjoyed this movie it was nice look at the teens of the late 30's and early 40's. It had great dance scenes and good music to go with it. with had a very realistic and intense fight scene for it's time. some scenes were a little long and drawn out.it is a good midnight movie it's a drive in style movie fine for the whole family. If you can find a copy you should see it there is not much more to say about it is just OK. it's not memorable but it's good, I mean don,t go out of your way to fine it but if you come across it pick it up for me. If you like black and white movie on a Saturday night you will like this.

love, Steve

4Leofwine_draca

Sleazy morality story

MAD YOUTH is another morality fable which looks at the plight of young girls caught up in vice and prostitution. As usual it tells the tale of an innocent young girl who, through no fault of her own, ends up being imprisoned inside a brothel. Who can save her and will they manage to do it in time?

This film has a slightly different angle to the rest in that the focus of the drama is on the relationship between mother and daughter. In fact, it's the mother's actions - in particular her cavorting with male prostitutes (!) - that causes the daughter to flee from her familial situation and fall into something even worse. Thus the film's erstwhile moral question is whether parents are responsible for the behaviour of their offspring.

There's some cheesy, heavy-handed moralising here, alongside the usual low-rent production values common in such sensationalist dramas. The acting is fairly average, although a little better than I've seen elsewhere. The film also picks up in the last twenty minutes, becoming something of a suspense thriller, and it even offers up some fun fight scenes; sadly it's not enough to make this a good film overall.

7AAdaSC

Mad, just so mad

Nothing really mad going on here at all, of course, apart from the heavy-handed moralizing as delivered by gigolo Count Willy Castello which will have you laughing out loud. And that is the point of these type of films - they are unintentionally hilarious in parts. It's what makes them good entertainment.

The story starts with Betty Compson (Lucy) phoning up for an escort as usual. On this evening she gets Willy Castello and she is not shy in coming forward! She takes him home where they meet up with her daughter Mary Ainslee (Marian). Big mistake. Castello takes a shine to the daughter and they start dating behind the mum's back. Ha ha. This must have happened so many times in real life. Well, the youth party and dance away but there is a new storyline introduced when Ainslee's best friend Betty Atkinson (Helen) absconds from home in response to an advert. The reality is that she has become a prossie and Ainslee unknowingly gets caught up in her plight when she pays her a visit. We need a hero to come and save them.

Meanwhile, Compson ends the film as she started it - by calling up an escort/gigolo to spend her evening with. She really has got life sussed. A good role model.

3dwpollar

Mediocre drama about a battling mother and daughter...

1st watched 2/19/2007 - 3 out of 10(Dir-Melville Shyer): Mediocre drama about a battling mother and daughter over the affections of a gigolo named "Count." Advertised as an exploitation movie about the horrors of youth but instead it's just a run-of-the-mill romance where it just happens that the mother and daughter are the competitors. The mother is trying to live out her youth all over again by hiring young escorts to take her to wonderful places but one young suitor is more impressed with her daughter. After a spat, the daughter decides to move out and hooks up with an old friend of hers who happens to be trapped in a brothel. The "Count" then comes to the rescue and the rest is cinema history(kind of)!! This is a very bland drama with professional dancing thrown in to keep us entertained around the silly story. The problem is that the dancing is better than the story, so I guess they should have made the movie around them instead of using them as window-dressing. Of course, that would have been a different movie but possibly a better one.

Dethcharm

"What Do You Expect Us Modern Mothers To Do?!"...

In MAD YOUTH, Marian Morgan (Mary Ainslee) waits for her mother to go out to her bridge game. Then, she invites "the gang" over for a bash. These 25 year old "teens" spend the night "jitterbugging" and playing "strip poker"! Adding to this godless mayhem, a baton-twirling majorette shows up! In a glittery uniform!

Meanwhile, mum's been out with a gigolo known as "The Count". When she brings "The Count" home for a nightcap, he falls for Marian!

Thus, begins Marian's downward spiral into an abyss of mariachi bands, clown-faced matadors, dogs in bull costumes, and human trafficking!

MAD YOUTH is another melodramatic morality tale from yesteryear. While not as deliriously absurd as REEFER MADNESS, it does have its own silly charm. Plus, the dance routines are a hoot!...

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Orchestra and all acts by courtesy of La Golondrina Cafe, Los Angeles.

Quotes
Count DeHoven: You mean to tell me you let your daughter go and visit Helen without even knowing where she lives?
Lucy Morgan: Well, yes. She said she'd write in a few days.
Count DeHoven: But all we know about Helen is that she ran away to marry a man she had never seen. A man she met through a matrimonial agency advertisement.
Lucy Morgan: Yes, I... I guess that is so.
Count DeHoven: Don't you know that some of those agencies are the worst kind of traps? That many of the customers are criminals, morons, white slavers, or people who are mentally or physically diseased?
Lucy Morgan: Oh, I've never given it a thought.
Count DeHoven: Oh, you American mothers, with your Bridge parties, and beauty shops, and your silly flirtations. Wasting your lives and neglecting your duties. Letting your children run wild for lack of sensible parental supervision.
Lucy Morgan: Oh, you don't know American children. They're spoiled and disobedient, and drunken.
Count DeHoven: Drunken? Yes, drunk with the exuberance of youth and sheer joy of living. There's nothing really wrong with the children of today. Nothing that proper environment and congenial home life wouldn't correct.
Lucy Morgan: What do you expect us modern mothers to do?
Count DeHoven: Quit trying to be butterflies. Get back to the business of being mothers, like your mother, and your grandmother, and generations of mothers before them.