THE AGE OF INDISCRETION is a surprisingly frank post-code soap opera from 1935, given the full MGM polish despite no box-office names in the cast, being a programmer ground out to fill the desire for new pictures every week. The end results are a satisfying if not overly memorable film.
Paul Lukas stars as a book publisher whose catalog of serious literature isn't paying the bills. His shallow, money-loving wife Helen Vinson is having an affair with Ralph Forbes and when Lukas gently requests she cut the spending sprees what little affection she has for him and their son David Lee Holt quickly disappears as she decides to ditch them for the wealthy lover. Trouble is after the divorce and remarriage Helen discovers Forbes is a mama's boy whose mother May Robson controls the family purse strings and isn't too fond of her new daughter-in-law. Arch-conservative Robson is appalled that Vinson has abandoned her son and pushes for her to seek custody, meanwhile Lukas tries to move on with his life and raise his son with some help from his devoted secretary Madge Evans.
This movie is very well acted and has a good script although Robson's character isn't particularly credible, hard to imagine this cold, penny pinching old miser would insist on her son's social climbing wife adding her kid to the family particularly when she hasn't even met the boy (it would have been far more probable this character would have insisted her son and his wife supply her with actual blood grandchild.) When Robson and Holt finally do meet, on neighboring cabins in the mountains it's not clear if this is a coincidence or Robson snooping on Lukas. The scene where Robson walks in Lukas' cabin and is furious to find him and his secretary pillow fighting in his bedroom in their pajamas (they'd been sleeping in separate rooms, mind you) is a stunner and the following court case is quite blunt about what presumably has been going on between the couple (so much so that this film was banned in Canada because of the courtroom scenes). The resolution alas comes off little too rushed. The cast is terrific although Lukas' Viennese accent occasionally makes his lines different to understand.
MGM had tried to make Madge Evans, a pleasant but unmemorable actress into a star for almost five years at this point and was soon to let her go after this film, the irony being she is better in this film than I've ever seen her before as well as at her peak in beauty. Helen Vinson is a memorably cold wife and May Robson is superb as always although her courtroom confession seems a little incredible, who wouldn't believe something scandalous for the day was going on after that scene she walked in on? Little David Holt was a quite good child actor of the time, he may be best known for his funny performance as Tom Sawyer's sissy cousin in that 1938 classic which happened to reunite him with Miss Robson yet here he's equally terrific as a more all-American boy type (though Southern accent comes through strongly on occasion making him a bit incredible as Lukas' and Vinson's son). Obscure character actress Catharine Doucet has a terrific cameo as a late-middleaged, best-selling "trash" romance novelist who has set her cap for the newly unattached Lukas. Movie buffs will want to watch for future Paramount starlet Shirley Ross in a small part as Evans' roommate and former silent star Mary McLaren playing the maid at the Robson estate.
TCM seems to only show this vintage soaper once or twice a decade, likely due to it's lack of big names. While not a classic, it certainly deserves more circulation than that.
Paul Lukas stars as a book publisher whose catalog of serious literature isn't paying the bills. His shallow, money-loving wife Helen Vinson is having an affair with Ralph Forbes and when Lukas gently requests she cut the spending sprees what little affection she has for him and their son David Lee Holt quickly disappears as she decides to ditch them for the wealthy lover. Trouble is after the divorce and remarriage Helen discovers Forbes is a mama's boy whose mother May Robson controls the family purse strings and isn't too fond of her new daughter-in-law. Arch-conservative Robson is appalled that Vinson has abandoned her son and pushes for her to seek custody, meanwhile Lukas tries to move on with his life and raise his son with some help from his devoted secretary Madge Evans.
This movie is very well acted and has a good script although Robson's character isn't particularly credible, hard to imagine this cold, penny pinching old miser would insist on her son's social climbing wife adding her kid to the family particularly when she hasn't even met the boy (it would have been far more probable this character would have insisted her son and his wife supply her with actual blood grandchild.) When Robson and Holt finally do meet, on neighboring cabins in the mountains it's not clear if this is a coincidence or Robson snooping on Lukas. The scene where Robson walks in Lukas' cabin and is furious to find him and his secretary pillow fighting in his bedroom in their pajamas (they'd been sleeping in separate rooms, mind you) is a stunner and the following court case is quite blunt about what presumably has been going on between the couple (so much so that this film was banned in Canada because of the courtroom scenes). The resolution alas comes off little too rushed. The cast is terrific although Lukas' Viennese accent occasionally makes his lines different to understand.
MGM had tried to make Madge Evans, a pleasant but unmemorable actress into a star for almost five years at this point and was soon to let her go after this film, the irony being she is better in this film than I've ever seen her before as well as at her peak in beauty. Helen Vinson is a memorably cold wife and May Robson is superb as always although her courtroom confession seems a little incredible, who wouldn't believe something scandalous for the day was going on after that scene she walked in on? Little David Holt was a quite good child actor of the time, he may be best known for his funny performance as Tom Sawyer's sissy cousin in that 1938 classic which happened to reunite him with Miss Robson yet here he's equally terrific as a more all-American boy type (though Southern accent comes through strongly on occasion making him a bit incredible as Lukas' and Vinson's son). Obscure character actress Catharine Doucet has a terrific cameo as a late-middleaged, best-selling "trash" romance novelist who has set her cap for the newly unattached Lukas. Movie buffs will want to watch for future Paramount starlet Shirley Ross in a small part as Evans' roommate and former silent star Mary McLaren playing the maid at the Robson estate.
TCM seems to only show this vintage soaper once or twice a decade, likely due to it's lack of big names. While not a classic, it certainly deserves more circulation than that.