The title of this movie is funny. "New Morals for Old" refers to the morals of the young folks of the era. I couldn't help but think two things:
1.) If they could only see the youngsters of today--myself included (though I'm no longer young).
2.) I thought all children born before 1970 were the most well-behaved kids ever created. It seems that every generation believes that the youngsters of their day are worse than they were.
In "New Morals" Mr. And Mrs. Thomas (Lewis Stone and Laura Hope Crews) have two adult children who still live with them (that was the natural order of things for the wealthy). Mr. Thomas was in the wallpaper business and he wanted his son Ralph (Robert Young) to take over while Ralph wanted to be an artist. As for the second child, Phyllis aka Phyl (Margaret Perry), she was busy dating a married man. Both children upset their father and worried their mother. The whole lot of them were unbearable while the two women were positively unbearable.
As for Mrs. Thomas, she was an irritating nag. All she did was fuss about her two children who were well past adolescence. She was the type of mother you'd never want to become if you're a woman. After her husband died she sat alone in her home pining for her children to come back to her. It was sad and pathetic. Don't be that mother who can't let her kids go. Get a life.
As for Phyl, what else needs to be said? She was running around with a married man and treating it like it was a 100% normal part of getting older and learning about love.
No TF it isn't.
And the movie only helped support her hair-brained antics by only showing the illicit pair happy and in love without ever showing his wife (and possible kids), as though they were inconsequential. As if to say, "Yeah, he has a wife at home wondering where he is, but she doesn't matter." At least some movies set it up where the wife is a hag thereby making the infidelity more understandable. In this case they just pretended she didn't exist.
The movie kept up the facade up until Phyl and Duff (David Newell), the philanderer, happily announced their marriage as though it made everything kosher. The two married and had twins and looked like the most prototypical happy couple. No one would ever guess that they started on the grounds of infidelity. In fact, it wasn't even mentioned again.
Yeah, this movie was weak. Their aim was to show that children raised in a good home would always turn out OK when I beg to differ. First, there was nothing wrong with Ralph to begin with, he just wanted to chase his dream. That's not a moral issue unless his dream was to be a human trafficker. And second, Phyl never redeemed herself. Yes, she married the guy once he divorced his wife, but she was contentedly the side chick the entire time AND she would have kept on being the contented side chick indefinitely. When Duff kicked his wife to the curb the position of main chick opened up and she was the first in line to fill it. Does she not think that he won't try to fill that side chick position again as well?
I just couldn't get down with this movie and what it was peddling. I'm finding out there's a big disconnect between me and these high society types on film and this movie just made the gap wider.
Free on Odnoklassniki.
1.) If they could only see the youngsters of today--myself included (though I'm no longer young).
2.) I thought all children born before 1970 were the most well-behaved kids ever created. It seems that every generation believes that the youngsters of their day are worse than they were.
In "New Morals" Mr. And Mrs. Thomas (Lewis Stone and Laura Hope Crews) have two adult children who still live with them (that was the natural order of things for the wealthy). Mr. Thomas was in the wallpaper business and he wanted his son Ralph (Robert Young) to take over while Ralph wanted to be an artist. As for the second child, Phyllis aka Phyl (Margaret Perry), she was busy dating a married man. Both children upset their father and worried their mother. The whole lot of them were unbearable while the two women were positively unbearable.
As for Mrs. Thomas, she was an irritating nag. All she did was fuss about her two children who were well past adolescence. She was the type of mother you'd never want to become if you're a woman. After her husband died she sat alone in her home pining for her children to come back to her. It was sad and pathetic. Don't be that mother who can't let her kids go. Get a life.
As for Phyl, what else needs to be said? She was running around with a married man and treating it like it was a 100% normal part of getting older and learning about love.
No TF it isn't.
And the movie only helped support her hair-brained antics by only showing the illicit pair happy and in love without ever showing his wife (and possible kids), as though they were inconsequential. As if to say, "Yeah, he has a wife at home wondering where he is, but she doesn't matter." At least some movies set it up where the wife is a hag thereby making the infidelity more understandable. In this case they just pretended she didn't exist.
The movie kept up the facade up until Phyl and Duff (David Newell), the philanderer, happily announced their marriage as though it made everything kosher. The two married and had twins and looked like the most prototypical happy couple. No one would ever guess that they started on the grounds of infidelity. In fact, it wasn't even mentioned again.
Yeah, this movie was weak. Their aim was to show that children raised in a good home would always turn out OK when I beg to differ. First, there was nothing wrong with Ralph to begin with, he just wanted to chase his dream. That's not a moral issue unless his dream was to be a human trafficker. And second, Phyl never redeemed herself. Yes, she married the guy once he divorced his wife, but she was contentedly the side chick the entire time AND she would have kept on being the contented side chick indefinitely. When Duff kicked his wife to the curb the position of main chick opened up and she was the first in line to fill it. Does she not think that he won't try to fill that side chick position again as well?
I just couldn't get down with this movie and what it was peddling. I'm finding out there's a big disconnect between me and these high society types on film and this movie just made the gap wider.
Free on Odnoklassniki.