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While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

An odd combination of pop musical and heavy drama, but it works, and how!The performances are memorable by all concerned, with a gem of a performance by an ageing Ethel Barrymore, who steals all her scenes in a minor role.The music and the songs, with one exception, fit easily into the plot and don't detract from the continuity of the action.All, who were associated with this movie deserve an award.Even the reported tension on the set between Sinatra, Day, and the producers seem to add a touch of reality to the on screen relationships. This crooner from Hoboken is entirely believable as the ultimate "outsider" to a happy suburban picket fence household.In a subtext, one of the last depictions of the 50s ideal American suburbia, this film portended the new age of disaffection and rebellion against the status quo.The Tuttle family were a sharp reminder of this suburban paradise lost!

Overall, I really liked Young At Heart. It was lovely to watch, with dazzling photography and lovely colours. The scenery, especially on the beach, was breathtaking, and the costumes were fabulous. The film at just under two hours is the perfect length, and there is a nicely crafted screenplay, and a good plot. In fact the only problems I had with this otherwise great movie was the tacked on ending and I felt that Barney's attempts to solve everyone's problems never quite rang true. But, the film is very sweet and pleasant in tone and is well intentioned from the start. The songs by Cole Porter and Ira Gershwin(George's brother)are just superb, especially the quintessential Young At Heart. The performances were spot on, with Frank Sinatra surly enough as Barney and the beautiful Doris Day sweet and sensitive as Laurie. And their chemistry was wholly believable. Gig Young, Ethel Barrymore and Dorothy Malone all give terrific supporting performances. All in all, one fine underrated film. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Although it is only heard sung by Frank Sinatra at the beginning and end credits of Young At Heart, the title song was both a big hit for Frank Sinatra and set the tone for a very warm and wonderful Yuletide picture.Warner Brothers already had this property, this is a remake of Four Daughters, minus a daughter, with Sinatra and Doris Day in the roles originated by John Garfield and Priscilla Lane. Doris's sisters are Dorothy Malone and Elizabeth Fraser who are all the daughters of music professor Robert Keith and all play instruments. The only non-musical member of their household is wise old maiden aunt, Ethel Barrymore.Of course Doris sings as well. But in the passing out of vocal material, Sinatra did a lot better than she did. None of her songs did anything for her vocal career. Sinatra wisely opted for standards by some of the very best. In his role as saloon singer/piano player/music arranger Frank gets to sing Just One of Those Things by Cole Porter, Someone to Watch Over Me by the brothers Gershwin and One For My Baby by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. Can't get much more talented in the song department than that group.One For My Baby was introduced by Fred Astaire in The Sky's the Limit, but when Sinatra sang it here it became forever identified with him and a staple item at all of his live performances.Sinatra and Day sang a duet You My Love at the finale. It was the song that Frank was working on through out the film. They sang it so well that you'd never know that tempers flared the entire time the film was made.During the Forties when both were at Columbia Records, Frank and Doris recorded a couple of duets together. In the interim, Sinatra moved on to Capitol records so no original cast album could be made from this soundtrack. It might not have happened anyway because back in the Forties Day spoke highly of Frank. Things cooled considerably between the two of them, among the items of contention was Day's husband Martin Melcher. Suffice it to say it was not a happy set.Still and all Young at Heart is one of the best films either of the stars did and really nice entertainment.

In musical terms this is, in many ways, two separate films; in one we have Doris Day singing the kind of sunny, feel-good songs she was recording successfully at that time - the mid fifties - and in the second we have Sinatra singing songs for Adults - with one exception 'standards' - as only he can. The story itself is, of course, our old friend the catalyst or what happens when an outsider is obliged by circumstances to join, usually temporarily, an existing social fabric and test its tolerance. In some ways this is a remarkably accurate musical version of Fannie Hurst's old potboiler 'Four Daughters' which back in 1938 introduced John Garfield to Hollywood. Fresh from the Group Theatre and weaned on Clifford Odets' machine-gun vitriolic dialogue Garfield had much the same impact on Hollywood and moviegoers as his character did on the all-American family headed by Claude Rains. For the remake Warners dropped one of the daughters, switched the locale to New England and turned Sinatra loose on father Robert Keith, aunt Ethel Barrymore and sisters Doris Day, Elisabeth Fraser and Dorothy Malone. If you watch Four Daughters immediately before Young At Heart you will hear that much of the dialogue - especially that originally spoken by Garfield - has been retained. Okay, it's a meller through and through but all hands are on the top of their game and Sinatra has seldom sung better on screen. The fact that he doesn't appear for a good half hour merely adds to the feeling of two separate films because we've had that half hour to adjust to the 'homeliness' of the Tuttles and Doris Day has laid most of her 'cute' songs on us so that the whole effect is to lull us into cosy expectation of a 'nice' movie and then Sinatra explodes into the frame and hijacks the movie. This is one to see again and again.