Those Endearing Young Charms (1945) User Reviews

Slight war-time romance only fairly absorbing...

[Doylenf · 14 October 2003]

The trouble with THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS is that you never really are convinced that Laraine Day's choice of Robert Young as the man she wants as a husband is a sensible one--will he ever change his stripes? Young plays a smooth heel who takes Day away from would be suitor Jerry (Bill Williams in his first movie role). Williams was the real-life husband of Barbara Hale and just getting started in films.

Young never seemed quite at home in these sort of roles--his suave manner is almost convincing but his character only reforms slightly toward the last reel, making Day's impulsive choice seem just a bit unreasonable. Ann Harding has an effective supporting role as Day's mom who cautions Day against the love'em and leave'em character played by Young.

Not bad as these sort of things go--but don't expect anything deeper than a cushion. Laraine Day is lovely as always with her bright eyes and dimpled smile and makes an appealing heroine. But she seems too smart to really fall for Robert Young's playboy. Bill Williams plays a happy go lucky guy in an affable enough manner. Too bad he was only able to find a few other good roles in the '40s.

The dialogue has a soap opera flavor to it--but the cast makes it worth watching.

A serious misfire.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 8 November 2011]

I am not sure why, but seeing Robert Young playing a jerk in older movies is hard to accept. It's probably because of his later persona as the nice-guy in such shows as "Father Knows Best" or "Marcus Welby" or perhaps it's because he doesn't have the smooth Lothario look of a real cad. All I know is that him playing such a smooth jerk in "Those Endearing Young Charms" isn't an easy sell for me.

The film begins with Laraine Day about to go on a causal date with a guy she knows. There's no real romance here--just a night out of dancing. However, the guy brings his buddy (Young) and Young is able to quickly charm Day--as well as her mother (Ann Harding). The problem is that they don't know that Young is a real cad--a love 'em and leave 'em sort of fellow. His nice-guy persona and charm is all an act--and Day is heartbroken when she discovers. But, and this part is THOROUGHLY UNCONVINCING, in the process Young actually does fall for her. Why this sudden change from this Don Juan? I have no idea. Nor, now that I think of it, can I understand Day's complete and instant change of heart. None of the action leading up to either change is convincing and it seems more like a plot device than a real love story. And so, the syrupy profession of love that occurs at about the 80 minute mark seems totally contrived and hollow. As a result, the film is all polish and absolutely no substance. A serious misfire for all concerned.

Not so endearing. Not so charming.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 9 August 2022]

While three of the leads play quite likeable characters, they are all over shadowed by one who isn't, and it's shocking who that one is. Robert Young's character does not know best, nor is he someone with a good bedside manner like Marcus Welby. Young takes what he thought was a good juicy part, but sadly, his soldier character is not at all worthy of the love that pretty perfume counter clerk Laraine Day gives him. The more naive and big hearted fellow soldier Bill Williams is far more deserving, but she views him as just a good buddy.

The issue between Day and Young goes back a generation, with Day's sophisticated mother, Ann Harding, revealing that she was once in love with Young's father but married her late husband because he was a better man. So this asks the question whether love is enough when a decent character is lacking, and if marrying the next best thing (or better than Young and his unseen father) can provide security is a better option. How about just getting away from the not quite nice guys because love for this type fades anyway?

This isn't one of the better romantic war dramas because I felt that Day and Young were mismatched anyway, and if Williams wasn't the one, then she surely was young enough for someone else to come along. Young is good in playing dark characters. He's just not the type of character the audience finds any sympathy for. Norma Varden as Day's imperious but good hearted supervisor provides some humor as does Larry McGrath as an abrasive cabby. What starts off as a light romantic drama turns much darker, and it's not a good transition.

A triumph!

[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 8 June 2018]

Copyright 3 June 1945 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Palace: 19 June 1945. U.S. release: June 1945. U.K. release: 27 January 1946. Australian release: 18 April 1946. 7,536 feet. 83 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Playboy pilot finds True Romance in the person of a department store salesgirl. Setting: New York City, war-time. NOTES: The stage play opened on 16 June 1943. Author Chodorov himself directed a cast that included Zachary Scott, Virginia Gilmore, Blanche Sweet and Dean Harens. The producer was Max Gordon. Film debut of Bill Williams. The old title song's full name is "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms". The music was composed by Matthew Locke, the lyrics written by Thomas Moore. It was sung in the film by Larry Burke, a popular vocalist in his day. This appears to be his only film appearance. Jerome Chodorov is Edward Chodorov's younger brother. Although it didn't make the top ten, the film was one of the biggest successes of the year at domestic ticket windows.

COMMENT: Beautifully photographed, ingratiatingly acted, sensitively directed, war-time soapie. The theme is a familiar one to say the least, but it's given bite and urgency, freshness and appeal in a superbly mounted production. All the players and technicians must share in this triumph.

Starting life as a successful four-character Broadway play, the screenwriter has opened it up very effectively without losing the original play's intensity. Many are the additional scenes, but they all serve to re-inforce the action, rather than dilute it, and provide further opportunities for rounded characterization and realistic dialogue. Young gives one of his best performances of this period, as do Laraine Day, Ann Harding, and even Bill Williams - here perfectly cast in a role he was never to better.

With his horror and thriller background, Lewis Allen would seem an odd choice for director. But he had handled Our Hearts Were Young and Gay as well as The Uninvited and The Unseen and has risen to the occasion gracefully here. Art direction, costumes, film editing and music scoring are equally attractive.

Abetting and indeed capping the appeal of the whole picture is Ted Tetzlaff's superlative camerawork with its lustrous close-ups, its clever rim lighting and marvelous use of mood and shadow. From a purely technical point of view, Those Endearing Young Charms is certainly one of the photographic gems of the period! Even those at our Hollywood Classics screening who found Those Endearing Young Charms a little too slowly paced, and maybe a little too inclined to dwell on beautiful close-ups of Miss Day, had to admit that the picture was always a supreme thrill just to look at.

Subversive and sour little romance.

[Delly · 13 October 2006]

If you're looking for the antidote to Since You Went Away-style hankiefests, or musicals about squeaky-clean GIs and their even squeakier cleaner girls, Those Endearing Young Charms fits the bill. Imagine a World War II romance with a lunchtime on-set rewrite by Louis-Ferdinand Celine ( "Women love war; it goes straight to their ovaries" ) and you might come up with something like this film, which lays on the syrupy romance and the goggle eyes while secretly brimming with misanthropy that would make Kubrick proud.

Lower middle-class Laraine Day is seduced by the wealthy officer played by Robert Young, while being chased by idealistic cadet Bill Williams. Young makes no bones about being a skirt-chaser with a heart of purest copper. The spectacle of the film is in Day's self-mutilating puppy dog devotion to a lost cause, and what it says about female masochism and love itself in a world of organized murder. The director plays it totally straight so that the sentimental target audience would be satisfied, while transmitting his message in code, as it were, to future generations who can read between the lines.

The film has many touches to make the concept plausible, such as when Day is taken to Young's base and immediately begins cooing over a phallic B-12. Soon afterwards, the waitress comes over to the table and the jests of the soldiers suggest that she has been a lazy Susan that all of them fed off of at least once, and then -- judging by her bitter hardness -- discarded. The idea of these being "good soldiers fighting a just war" doesn't seem very plausible in this instance. It seems all wars bring with them certain personal motivations.

The script locates the epicenter of innocence and true romance not in the woman but in Bill Williams, a kind of fetal Parsifal. He reminds you of the guy in The Canterbury Tales whose dream girl, who he unknowingly catches in bed with another man, tells him to close his eyes before sticking her butt out the window for him to kiss, followed by the raucous laughter of her and her real boyfriend -- Chaucer then says succinctly of the young man "For woman's love he cared no more." Williams goes through a similarly elaborate process of inoculation with Laraine Day. He proceeds through all the stages of devotion and its aftermath: puppy love, courtly wooing, brotherly support, then noble renunciation, none of which she notices.

But at the end, after giving up what he never had, he says, looking visibly exalted "Why do I feel so good?" That's the question that stays with you from this film.

P.S. The title seems to be sarcastic not only about the allure of youth but about its lead actor!