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That was an excellent one.

Lack of good storyline.

Admirable film.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

THE YOUNGER GENERATION (1929) starts as a silent film, complete with synchronized audio track (for music and sound effects), but eventually lapses into an early talkie with spoken dialogue. The scenes alternate between silent and sound throughout the duration of the film. It's an interesting curiosity for film history buffs, as the movie was released at seemingly the exact moment when Hollywood transitioned from silent cinema to talking pictures.The story is nothing groundbreaking. The Goldfish family rises from the cultural melting pot of the Lower East Side to Fifth Avenue high society, thanks to son Morris (Ricardo Cortez), a shrewd businessman who grows the family furniture store into a successful antiques emporium.Morris rules his family with an iron fist, forbidding his sister Birdie (Lina Basquette) from seeing her childhood sweetheart from the old neighborhood. The ritzy Fifth Avenue lifestyle stifles Papa Goldfish (Jean Hersholt), who misses his friends from Delancey Street. Morris even legally changes his surname from Goldfish to the less-Jewish "Fish" in order to distance himself from his family's ethnic heritage.As an early talkie, many of the line readings are a bit awkward, though Basquette handles the dialogue better than the rest of the cast (even Cortez). But even with her naturalistic delivery, the lines are often written awkwardly.Still, the human drama pulls at your heart. Financial success brings misery to the Goldfish family. Morris is a real jerk, and everyone else in his house suffers as he climbs the social ladder. Cut off from her family, Birdie stitches together a happy little life with her songwriter husband, while Morris obsesses over his social position and leads an ultimately empty existence. Lina Basquette is pretty cute as Birdie and Jean Hersholt's performance is heartbreaking.

Younger Generation, The (1929)** 1/2 (out of 4)Early Capra melodrama has poor Jewish family taken out of the ghetto by their youngest son (Ricardo Cortez) who strikes it big. He moves his father (Jean Hersholt), mother (Rosa Rosanova) and sister (Lina Basquette) into a large house and expects them to do what he says and stay away from the "filth" they grew up around. Soon the three start to realize that money can't buy happiness but will the son learn this before it's too late? At this point in time Columbia was still a very small studio so they couldn't afford to go all in in terms of sound movies so this is another example of a silent with a few sound segments scattered throughout the film. I've always found this to be incredibly distracting but I think Capra does a great job at when to use the sound and I also think the quality of the recorded words is among the best I've heard from this era. Considering how poor the studio was it's rather shocking that some of the other studios early talkies didn't come off sounding better. With that said, there are some major problems with the film but for the most part it's a nice time filler that fans of the director will want to check out. The biggest problem is that even in 1929 this material was way too predictable. There's really not a single thing that happens in the film that you won't see coming from a mile away. The format pretty much follows every morality film that came before it and I just wish at some point Capra would have shaken things up just to keep us off guard or at least in some drama. It should come as no shock that Capra does a great job with what's here and manages to keep the film moving quite fast and he keeps it as entertaining as the screenplay will allow. The cast also keeps things moving nicely with their fine performances. Cortez would play this type of role countless times in his career and he always managed to do good with it. Hersholt clearly steals the film as the tortured father. In the end, this isn't the greatest film ever made but I think Capra did the most he could considering what he had to work with. I think those who like to search out these early talkies will find the quality here to be above average and will make one wonder why some of the bigger studios didn't have their stuff sounding as good.

I just had the opportunity to see this film on our most valuable classic film resource, TCM. It was good to see, purely for historic purposes regarding Frank Capra's career. One good thing about the silent parts is that if you had taped or Tivo'd the film, you can scan the silent scenes at double speed and still follow the story. One curious thing (stemming from the original story) stood out for me though; if I wanted to change my name from Goldfish to a classier name, I would surely change it to Gold instead of Fish! After all, Samuel Goldfish changed his name to Goldwyn. I say, when in doubt, keep the Gold and lose the Fish!

True this is not a typical Capra film as has been noted, but his hand is all over this thing. One has to keep in mind how early this was in Capra's career. It has the main elements usually found in his films, especially the lessons about what really matters in life. Papa Goldfish was not a successful man financially like his son was, but the reunion on the street when he goes back to his old neighborhood was very telling --- and touching. Other touching moments include not just Birdie's getting to see him before he dies, but also Papa's asking her, "Did you know I'm a Grandpa?" She runs to get the baby for him to see and lets the baby play on the bed next to him. Papa even asks the baby "Ain't you surprised I'm a Grandpa?" These, among many others, are all Capra touches. About the only thing missing was the villain managing to repent. But Capra's villains did not always mend their ways. Here the main difference was that it was the protagonist's own son who manages to muck things up. It's a good little film and I think Frank Capra fans will enjoy seeing his early work.