An age-old theme in many a Hollywood Production is whether people can change.  Can the bad become good or vice versa?  Faith has a simple answer to this question: yes.  I am not trying to be flippant or make a joke.  Good people can do bad things, and the converse is true as well.  The former we call sin and the latter is redemption.  At the same time, it is difficult to pin the labels of “bad” and “good” on anyone.  When called such by a stranger in Mark 10:17, in the following verse Jesus replies, “Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.”  What matters is intention.  Elsewhere, in Luke 6:45, Jesus says, “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”  Any given person can be perceived in a negative light.  Yet, they might, when you are not noticing, give a beggar a bite to eat and a kind word.  We do not know the human heart, not even our own, only God does.  Hopefully, you will see these notions at work as I describe to you The Young in Heart (1938).

The collection of people focused on are not all literally The Young in Heart.  Their patriarch, Colonel Anthony “Sahib” Carleton (Roland Young), is talking with Mr. Jennings (Irvin S. Cobb) in a swanky Riviera hotel.  They are discussing how, with the impending marriage of Mr. Jennings’ daughter, Adela Jennings (Margaret Early), to the Carleton son Richard (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), what is Sahib’s will become Mr. Jennings’ and, more importantly, what is Mr. Jennings’ will become Sahib’s.  The emphasis is on the latter of those transactions because the Carleton family are a group of con artists, and they are all in on the scam.  Sahib’s wife, Marmy Carleton (Billie Burke), chats with Mrs. Jennings, while George-Anne Carleton (Janet Gaynor), the daughter, supports from the background.  George-Anne’s job is to keep quiet, while also financially benefitting from the arrangement, which would allow her to marry her fiancé, Duncan Macrae (Richard Carlson).  Indeed, Duncan is aware of the Carleton’s shady dealings but cares only for George-Anne.  The people who care a little more are the Riviera’s authorities, who eventually ask the Carleton’s to leave.  So keen are the police to get rid of the Carletons that they buy them train tickets back to London.  Two important developments happen during their journey.  First, George-Anne encounters Duncan on the way to the British capital.  He claims a lack of concern about her charlatan ways, but refuses to eat dinner with the rest of her family.  Not long after the first of several “once and for all” partings with her would-be lover, she is signaled by Ellen Fortune (Minnie Dupree), also known as Miss Fortune.  I am not joking, by the way.  This is how the kindly old lady introduces herself to the Carletons when she invites them all to her to dine with her in her roomette.  The Carletons are only too happy to oblige, especially as she unfolds her tale of being without family or friend, but sitting on a large fortune.  In turn, they eagerly accept Ellen’s insistence that they stay with her at her large London mansion.  Still, it is evident that Ellen’s earnest faith in her new friends has an effect on the Carletons.  Faith is a blessing, and this movie is a testament to that fact.  In order to, in a sense, make themselves worthy of the offer of room and board, Sahib and Richard look for legitimate employment.  Though George-Anne is distressed by an overture of assistance from Duncan, Sahib nonetheless takes the job as a salesman for the Flying Wombat car company.  Richard, too, accepts a real position as a mail sorter for an engineering company.  To be fair, he is enticed to stick around by the fetching Leslie Saunders (Paulette Goddard), who he immediately asks to marry.  As the Carletons settle into this new life of straight, if unspectacular paychecks, it is up to George-Anne to secure their real prize: being added as heirs to Ellen’s, er, fortune.  The more George-Anne witnesses Ellen’s charity to her family, the more the young woman feels guilty about her way of life.  The same goes for Richard.  His courtship of Leslie starts well despite her being wise to his lines.  Because he is developing real feelings for her, he decides to admit his crookedness.  She is not impressed, and to prove his seriousness, he purchases a puppy for Ellen.  Not long thereafter, Ellen is visited by Felix Anstruther (Henry Stephenson), her attorney.  He comes with information that the Carletons are a family of confidence men.  Instead of anger, her reaction is one of sympathy, wondering about the awful circumstances that would drive people to behave in such a manner.  With this, she decides to sign her will over to the Carletons.  Instead of being elated by this news, they take it with a feeling of undeserved-ness.  This is displayed by George-Anne when telling Duncan once more about how terrible of a person she is for all the rotten things she has done. What changes their minds is, unsurprisingly, Ellen.  When she faints at a party she hosts for them, the Carletons are relieved when she pulls through.  Before they learn of her recovery, Felix informs them that Ellen’s estate is worthless, owing to several accrued debts.  Nonetheless, because of Sahib’s success in the automobile industry, and Richard’s newfound commitment to making something of himself, they agree to take care of Ellen for the rest of her life.  We close with them living together, with George-Anne and Richard married to their significant others, in a new house in the countryside, and Ellen gaining the family she had always wanted.

What initially attracts Ellen to the Carletons is that the family seems to be The Young in Heart.  Given her lack of luck in love, if not wealth, one could think of her proper name as referring to her “fortune” or riches.  Then again, when the Carletons learn of the real financial situation, you might think of it as “misfortune.”  A better, more Catholic way of framing these alternate renderings of her name pertains to her attitudes towards her new, crooked friends.  She sees them as her fortune, which is as Biblical a way of referring to our loved ones as can be.  To underscore this, I give you Sirach 6:14-16, “14Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter; whoever finds one finds treasure. 15Faithful friends are beyond price, no amount can balance their worth. 16Faithful friends are life-saving medicine; those who fear God will find them.”  Each of these lines has some application to the relationship that develops between Ellen and the Carletons (obscure band name!). Though it is the elderly woman initially providing shelter, the Carletons ultimately give a home to lonely old lady.  Further, Ellen’s initial offer of counsel to George-Anne is a life-saving medicine that is returned in a more concrete fashion when Ellen needs their care at the end.  Finally, when Felix reveals Ellen’s real bottom line, the Carletons give all their treasure to providing for Ellen in final years.  Though Ellen talks about faith a lot, it is less about Christian practice than having a broad belief in something bigger.  The Bible, once again, is more concrete.  In the next verse in Sirach it is added, “Those who fear the Lord enjoy stable friendship, for as they are, so will their neighbors be.”  This bit of Scripture perfectly sums up Ellen’s actions, and the Carletons by the end.  Yet, it all starts with God.  Those who profit best are the ones fear the Lord and seek His Kingdom first.  Without this belief, we are doomed to die friendless as she had been before meeting the Carletons.  They may have had ill intentions, but their transformation is no less complete.

On top of being about The Young in Heart, it is also a fun little movie.  This is reinforced in the opening crawl when the Carletons are described as charming with “a touch of larceny.”  What is great about the proceedings is seeing them leave behind the larceny.  Because of this and many other factors, this one gets a full recommendation from me.