Too Young to Love (1960) User Reviews

You won't believe it's a British film...

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 16 January 2016]

Other than the presence of pop star Jess Conrad in the cast, there's no real way to tell that TOO YOUNG TO LOVE is a British film as it gets the American authenticity spot on. It's an above-average addition to the wave of 'sensation' films that had been going since the 1930s and which enjoyed a resurgence in popularity during the 1950s. The format of TOO YOUNG TO LOVE is a courtroom drama, with a middle aged bloke on trial for having underage sex with a 15 year old girl.

As you can guess from that description, TOO YOUNG TO LOVE must have been incredibly controversial for its time. Dialogue within the production is explicit and the situations alluded to are distinctly adult in tone (for example, when one character is described as having "laid a sailor"). It's also a well made little movie, with strong direction and performances, and one which seeks to get to the meat of its subject matter rather than shying away from anything too unsavoury. I thought it was a real surprise, and it's a film I'd recommend to those interested in exploring the genre as a product ahead of its time.

Scorching courtroom drama is one of the most explicit British films of its time

[davidvmcgillivray-24-905811 · 6/10 · 13 January 2016]

The title tells all. This really is a film about underage sex, but made in the UK in 1959. I can't think of another British film of the 1950s with such explicit dialogue. It's based on a 1944 play, "Pick-Up Girl", which had to open at a theatre club in London in 1946 because theatre censor the Lord Chamberlain objected. Only after finding royal patronage did the play transfer to the West End. After reading a screenplay, the BBFC refused to allow a film to go ahead. By 1959 film censorship had relaxed considerably. Censor John Trevelyan was favourably impressed by the film's social message, that parents should be held responsible for their children's delinquent behaviour. He passed remarkably frank dialogue. A 15-year-old girl, Elizabeth, is brought to juvenile court because she's been found naked in bed with a middle-aged man. She reveals in her testimony that previously she had sex with a sailor, got pregnant and had an abortion. Now she has syphilis. She doesn't like one of her would-be suitors, Larry, because he indulged in what would now be called revenge porn. He wrote over her front door that she "laid a sailor." Even Elizabeth's nice boyfriend Peter is willing to break the law to help her escape from court. There is one reference to "marijuana cigarettes" (the first time in a British film?) Apart from perfunctory flashbacks almost all the action is confined to the courtroom and this seems not to have appealed to audiences or critics. British audiences surely must have felt that this type of delinquency was quite alien. Why was a film set in a New York juvenile court made in the UK? It can't have been easy. But in fact it's pretty convincing. I doubt that the film was shown in the US (it must have broken almost every rule in the Production Code). But if it had been I expect few Americans would have guessed that the studio was not in Hollywood but Boreham Wood. Thomas Mitchell was brought over from the US to play the judge and does so with great gravitas. Elizabeth is played by Pauline Hahn, who had been in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" on Broadway. The rest of the cast mostly comprises UK-based Yanks and Canadians. Jess Conrad and Vivian Matalon are Brits but they look very American. (Conrad is dubbed). Hahn and Sheila Gallagher are two more examples of actors who played only one leading film role and then never appeared on screen again. Far more shocking than the theme for today's viewer is that the middle-aged man is released without charge while Elizabeth gets three years detention! A strange record of the way things were.

A real curiosity

[malcolmgsw · 6/10 · 5 March 2016]

This is an extremely strange film.Made in the UK but set in Brooklyn.There are two notable Americans in the cast,Thomas Mitchell as the judge and Bessie Love as the court clerk.For some reason the underage girl is on trial without any legal representation.A 47 year old man who had sex with her is let off without charge.What is worse it turns out that the girl has been sleeping around,so not only does she get sentences to three years juvenile detention but she has also contracted syphilis.It was clearly hard hitting and controversial for the time.Why did Sydney and Muriel Box set this in the US?Maybe the censor wouldn't have passed it if set in the UK.

Ahead of it time

[peterwburrows-70774 · 7/10 · 29 December 2020]

A most unusual film. Set in America but made in Britain because the subject matter concerning underage sex would never have been allowed over 60 years ago. The sets are good, good plot, but let down by the language used especially when dubbed. It is a must see though for the curiosity of the subject matter being explicit for the time.

Good Movie

[boblipton · 6/10 · 27 March 2023]

Thomas Mitchell is a judge in juvenile court. The case under his consideration is based on 47-year-old Alan Gifford, wearing only an undershirt, in the bedroom of 15-year-old Pauline Hahn, wearing nothing.

It's a difficult case that Mitchell must untangle, involving incoherent parents, slovenly associates, and a girl who is not vicious, but fallen into vicious habits. It considers various issues of the day, of changing society, and does so in a thoughtful and excellent manner.

The performances are likewise good, if occasionally they are written a bit monotonously. My one cavil with it is that the director, Muriel Box, seems to have a tin ear for the details of American speech; the accents and vocabulary are a bit too stereotyped to make one think these are three-dimensional characters. Still, an interesting work.

I've Seen It and I Still Don't Believe It!!

[richardchatten · 2/10 · 16 October 2019]

An astonishing exercise in late fifties sleaze worthy of pre-code Hollywood set in a surreal British visualisation of Brooklyn (complete with American-style slang) based on a play by Elsa Shelley called 'Pick Up Girl'; but then wrecked by garrulous scripting by Sydney Box and leaden direction from Muriel. Raymond Durgnat in 'Films in Review' said it "seems to be slanted for American television", and it certainly feels like an ancient TV production.

Presumably rushed into production to capitalise on the 'shock' impact recently achieved by 'Anatomy of a Murder', the script includes words like 'sex delinquent', 'marijuana', 'abortion' and 'syphilis' delivered by Thomas Mitchell (who presumably had been imported to lend the sort of folksy gravitas Joseph Welch had brought to Preminger's film). British-based Yanks & Canadians Joan Miller (who was in the original stage production), Jess Conrad, Cec Linder, Alan Gifford, Austin Willis and Charles Farrell fill out supporting roles in the tiny courtroom presided over by a clerk primly played by - believe it or not! - Bessie Love.

Sheila Gallagher is breathtaking as platinum blonde bad girl Ruby.

Out of control teenagers!

[plan99 · 8/10 · 26 April 2021]

A great version of the "teenagers out of control" type of film with great performances all round except from Jess Conrad who was very wooden. A film made to scare teenager into behaving as their elders think they should, if I had seen it as a teenager it would have worked on me. Impressively American made looking for a UK made film. Well worth a watch.