Watch The Young Philadelphians For Free

That was an excellent one.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Thoroughly enjoyed this winding romance, war, courtroom, university drama. Newman is a heartbroken hero whose inner goodness is distorted by ambition. Fortunately in 1959 happy endings still existed. Great flick

Directed by Vincent Sherman, and written by James Gunn who adapted Richard Powell's intricate novel, it features (supporting actor) Robert Vaughn's only Academy Award nominated performance. Harry Stradling Sr.'s B&W Cinematography received a nomination as did Howard Shoup's Costume Design. The story begins with wedding night jitters (allusion to homosexuality) followed by an illegitimate birth, but its focus is on class distinctions, lawyering, and sex. It ends with Vaughn's character on trial for murder and a courtroom drama. The plot is compelling; its pace and intricacy make the film's 135 minute runtime fly by.Kate (Diane Brewster) marries William Lawrence III (Adam West) for his money in lieu of the working class 'stiff' she really loves, construction worker Mike Flanagan (Brian Keith). But after a brief disillusioning moment on her wedding night - her newlywed husband seems ill equipped to consummate their marriage, says he's been living a lie and runs out on her after a brief, forced kiss - she returns to Mike, who apparently has no problem finishing the job. When Kate wonders home to her mother at 4 AM, she learns that she's a young widow - her husband had been killed when his too-fast- traveling car crashed. Nine months later when Kate is recovering from childbirth, Mrs. Lawrence (Isobel Elsom) visits her, knowing all too well that the baby can't be her son's child. But instead of taking a payoff, Kate informs her ex-mother-in-law that she'll be keeping the family name and calling her son Anthony Judson Lawrence. Later, when Mike arrives to propose to her, class conscious Kate won't have him and insists that he not return; over the years, she uses the Lawrence name to serve on high society committees, and sacrifices to provide the best for her son.When Anthony (Paul Newman) is in his early twenties, he's a scholar at Princeton about to graduate and enter law school; he does construction work for Mike during summers. On the job one day he meets and helps Joan Dickinson (Barbara Rush), who'd just been in a fender bender. Later, attending a society party with his inebriated best friend 'Chet' Gwynn (Vaughn), he bumps into her again. She's dating Carter Henry (Fred Eisley), who's worth $20 million but has yet to propose to her. Joan and Anthony hit it off and begin dating while Carter's away for the summer. They fall in love and at the end of the summer, when Anthony's about to return to college, Jane meets with Chet to ask him how she could keep him. He advises her to use the old fashioned way (get pregnant). Jane then succeeds in getting Anthony interested enough to propose but, on their way to eloping, they're stopped by her father, one of the city's most celebrated lawyers Gilbert Dickinson (John Williams). Dickinson manipulates the situation by volunteering to be Anthony's preceptor and then offering him a to-die-for future that includes a position with his firm that should eventually lead to a partnership if he'll only wait until June (the end of the next school year) to marry his daughter. Anthony jumps at the offer but allows Mr. Dickinson to explain the arrangement to Jane which, of course, he presents in a different light, making her feel like she'd been being used by Anthony.By Christmastime, Anthony meets with Dickinson and learns that Jane, who'd stopped writing him, has married Carter after all. Naturally, he then goes to get drunk with his pal Chet. Later, however, he decides to get even. He hears from a fellow student, Louis Donetti (Paul Picerni) that John Marshall Wharton (Otto Kruger), a partner in a prestigious law firm, is working on a Sherman Anti-Trust brief, so he schemes to get the internship in part by charming the old lawyer's much younger wife Carol (Alexis Smith). But an affair between Anthony and Carol never really develops and, realizing his pupil's restraint, Wharton offers the young graduate a position, which proves to be fairly boring for him until Mrs. J. Arthur Allen (Billie Burke) walks in one day with her small dog, the following Christmas.Burke is a delight, playing a wealthy widow, who's still managing her husband's oil company fortune, the way she played so many dizzy but "wise" roles in those 1930's screwball classics. Mrs. Allen had been a client of Dickinson's firm, but Anthony coyly wins her business by saving her money on taxes, impressing (her) and ultimately reconciling and reuniting with Dickinson's daughter Jane, now the widowed Mrs. Henry. Ten years had passed and Anthony had served in the war with Chet, who'd lost an arm; Carter had been killed in the conflict after he'd volunteered to serve per problems at home.Now Chet, who'd always been a problem - a spoiled and neglected youth of affluent but now deceased parents whose estate is controlled by his disapproving uncle Morton Stearnes (Robert Douglas) and Doctor Stearnes (Frank Conroy), a purveyor of the "genes vs. environment" theory - is accused of murdering his uncle. Of course Chet wants his ill-suited corporate lawyer friend Anthony to represent him against District Attorney Donetti. Even though trying the case may hurt his reputation and position in society, like running for the city council which had been proposed by Mike and Donetti some time earlier, Anthony is loyal to a fault and decides to do so against everyone but Jane's wishes. But Doctor Stearnes, who'd been privy to certain information from Mrs. Lawrence, visits Kate and more or less threatens to reveal her son's questionable past if Anthony stains their family's name in court. Still, Anthony is able to discredit the state's star witness, Morton's butler George (Richard Deacon), during cross examination. He then introduces the possibility of suicide with Doctor Stearnes on the stand to ultimately win the day, saving his friend while living up to Jane's high expectations, bringing her to tears, and the melodrama to a satisfactory conclusion.

This unbelievable (but no less enjoyable) legal soap opera comes complete with dark family secrets, coincidental encounters, tragic misunderstandings, and a courtroom finish Hitchcock might have loved, in which the fate of a man perhaps wrongly charged with murder waits to be decided by a butler's sense of smell. Paul Newman stars as a young lawyer rising through Philadelphia society using his wits, his charm, and a few unscrupulous tactics never taught in law school, and Barbara Rush is the hot-and-cold love interest. But Robert Vaughn steals the film playing an unfortunate friend who, in less than two hours of screen time, descends from an amiable barfly to a crippled war veteran to a skid row derelict facing the electric chair.

By 1959, Paul Newman's career was moving into high gear, with CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, THE LONG, HOT SUMMER, and SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME all critical and commercial successes. Even his harshest critics grudgingly admitted he was far more than just a "Brando look-alike" (as he had been labeled in his first films), but his contract to Warner Bros. forced him to also appear in potboilers (THE HELEN MORGAN STORY), and misguided comedies (RALLY 'ROUND THE FLAG, BOYS!), and Newman was chafing at the bit to be able to pick and choose his own projects.Vincent Sherman's THE YOUNG PHILADELPHIANS, the last film under Newman's WB contract, proved to be one of the best, and he showed the dazzling sexuality and near-arrogant confidence that would mark many of his films of the next decade. As Anthony Judson Lawrence, illegitimate son of Brian Keith (performed with a brogue and a wink, as Keith was, actually, less than 4 years older than Newman), and social climbing mother Diane Brewster, he carried the name of an 'upper crust' father (Adam West, as wooden as he would be in "Batman"), whose homosexuality had been carefully hidden and whose inability to 'perform' and suicidal death on his wedding night would result in a 'deal' between mother and in-laws; the boy could keep the name, but would not have access to the family fortune.Flashing ahead a few years, Lawrence is a strapping, 'blue collar' kind of guy, much to the chagrin of his mother, who hopes that his name will gain him inroads into Philadelphia 'society'. Working construction with his (yet unknown to him) birth father, between semesters at law school, he meets pretty socialite Joan Dickinson (Barbara Rush), who quickly falls for his sweaty, sexy charm. Lawrence's best friend, to his mother's relief, is alcoholic fellow student 'Chet' Gwynn (Robert Vaughn, in an Oscar-nominated role), heir of another elite family, who sees in Lawrence a personal courage he lacks. Vaughn's performance is a film highlight, quite similar to Lew Ayres' role in HOLIDAY, twenty years earlier, through the early part of the film.Young Lawrence is fighting his mother's battle for acceptance, and, in the first of several 'upwardly mobile' decisions, he postpones a quick marriage to Joan, in return for help in his law career. While he is convinced the delay would help the two of them, it costs him her love. Bitterly, he decides to 'play the game', using whatever means necessary to get ahead. With a brief interruption by the Korean War, his career flourishes, aided by a willingness to use 'inside' information to obtain a choice clerking appointment, while toying with a near-affair with the 'younger' wife of the aged lawyer he is studying with (Alexis Smith, gloriously beautiful at 38). When he achieves a spot in a prestigious law firm, he 'woos' a major client (Billie Burke) over to him. With unscrupulous ease, he reaches a pinnacle his mother had only dreamed of.But Lawrence's world is about to come crashing down, as Gwynn, his college friend, crippled in Korea, has been arrested for murder, and begs the lawyer to represent him. The trial promises to expose the seamy underbelly of Philadelphia society, revealing secrets that could destroy many lives, including his own.Lawrence faces a moral dilemma, whether to save his friend, or preserve the fiction of his own life...Entertaining and at times powerful, THE YOUNG PHILADELPHIANS is a fitting conclusion to the early stage of Paul Newman's career; ahead was EXODUS, and a decade of roles that would cement his position as a superstar!