After watching "New Morals for Old", I was left wondering just what was the point of this movie. I really am not sure....and wonder if the writer was equally undecided!
The film concerns a family of rich folks who seem to have way too much money and way too much time on their hands. Although the father (Lewis Stone) worked to make his fortune, his kids (Robert Young and Margaret Perry) seem like spoiled and rather amoral jerks. The son wants to run off to Paris to become a painter and the daughter wants to sleep with a married man. While the parents can't understand this sort of behavior, in this very permissive family, they really don't say much of anything about this. Eventually, the father dies and the son finally takes off to paint. And,...well, there really isn't much more to the film.
The film MIGHT be saying that a new, selfish and permissive age is coming or it might have tried saying that the parents were just old fashioned and behind the times--but I can't be sure. The movie seemed to take an amoral approach--showing the kids' behaviors in a very direct and non-judgmental manner. Well, I might have felt that was okay for the son but the film had a definite Pre-Code attitude about adultery, that's for sure. The bottom line is that I objected far less to the kids' actions and more that there was no sort of point to any of this...none.