Watch The Age of Consent For Free

Thanks for the memories!

best movie i've ever seen.

Absolutely the worst movie.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Directed by Gregory La Cava and executive produced by David O. Selznick, the screenplay for this Martin Flavin play was written by Sarah Y. Mason and Francis M. Cockrell. The film is a dated drama about "free love" on college campuses. There are a couple of scenes where the characters are seen discussing this and that while sitting on a stone bench engraved with "in loco parentis".The film begins with a montage of several short, poorly acted clips with students discussing "free love", which is all the rage on this particular college campus. Grady Sutton appears uncredited as one of the students in the dormitory (Betty Grable is also listed as being one of the students on campus, uncredited, though I failed to spot her).Betty (Dorothy Wilson) can't quite decide whether she wants to participate or not. On the one hand, she's been dating a young man with high ideals, Mike Harvey (Richard Cromwell), a pretty boy whose "mentor" is Professor David Mathews (John Halliday). On the other hand, she is attracted to the rich, carefree Duke Galloway (Eric Linden). Frustrated by Betty's cavalier attitude and everyone else's "looseness", Mike retreats to a local hangout to be alone. There, he unburdens his "conservative" views to Dora Swale (Arline Judge), a young waitress.Soon, however, Betty is wooed by Mike, who gives her his college pin, and the two of them start to make plans. Mike turns to Professor Mathews for advice. However, he is obviously conflicted and fails to make a compelling case for Mike to stay in school and wait a couple of years before marrying Betty. The primary reason for his failure in this area is his own personal experience. Evidently he too had a love of a lifetime in Barbara (Aileeen Pringle), also now a teacher on campus, and they had decided to wait only to see their love fade such that they never married.Barbara also advises Betty similarly. In fact, it isn't until she is dispensing with her advice that we learn Professor Mathews's love had been Barbara (through a photograph). In a moment of passion, Mike tells Betty he is willing to drop out of college to take a job he knows he can always get in California, so they can marry, but she says she'd feel terrible if he did and that they should wait for him to finish his degree instead.One night, everything changes. A (sexually?) frustrated Mike is "seduced" into walking Dora home from Tolers, the local hangout. Arriving at her home, he discovers that her father (Reginald Barlow) works nights. Acting irresponsibly, the two drink, dance, and spend the night together (though what actually happens is open for debate). Mr. Swale gets home at 4 AM to discover the disheveled couple and invokes the shotgun wedding principle. Dora was underage?In any case, Professor Mathews tries to intervene, acting every bit the liberal one would expect on today's college campuses, and prevent Mr. Swale from ruining Mike's life. But, forced to own up to his error by the Assistant District Attorney (Frederick Burton, uncredited), Mike accepts his fate and agrees to wed Dora.A distraught Betty, upset that maintaining her ideals have earned her nothing, is consoled by Duke and then goes for a ride in his fast car. Naturally, they are in a car crash. Professor Mathews receives a call from Barbara at the Swale's just before the wedding can take place, informing him of the accident.Everyone rushes to the hospital where the doctor (Howard C. Hickman, uncredited) informs them that Duke will not survive, but Betty is expected to recover fully. We witness Duke's melodramatic passing away. Seeing Mike's love for the injured Betty, a tearful Dora refuses to force Mike to go through with it, much to her working class father's disappointment; he had hoped her daughter would marry a college graduate! The last scene shows Mike and Betty departing on a train for California with Professor Mathews and Barbara waving to them.

Based upon a play, "The Age of Consent" is a film of ideas. Although it might first seem like just another flippantly written pre-code story about young love, the title is the first clue. The age of consent in a particular jurisdiction is the age at which one can legally consent to sexual acts. Knowing this, the viewer might consider it an allusion to the line between immaturity and maturity that the students of State University ride. They are not yet ready for the responsibilities of adult life, but the educational process asks them to consider the large issues of life.A stone bench on campus is the second clue to the serious ideas this film explores. "In loco parentis" is a Latin phrase meaning "in the place of a parent" and it is a concept regarding the (if you will, fiduciary) legal role of a college, upon accepting a student in its care, to assume some responsibilities of a parent and, therefore, some legal liabilities. That phrase is carved into this bench, where we see Professor David Matthews (John Halliday) offer parental advice and comfort to student Mike Harvey (Richard Cromwell).Both legal concepts figure heavily in the story. The campus is a seemingly idyllic setting where students can exist in an ivory tower, away from the harsh realities of the outside world, to explore controversial and abstract ideas, like free love. But innocence resides there with burgeoning passions and the difficulties they present.The moral relativism that many feared would result from abstract ideas and newer scientific principles, e.g. Darwinism and a revised astronomical view of man's place in the universe, come head to head with the "older" moral certainties of absolutism and church dogma. Will love find a place in the crossfire?This film features good, sparkling dialogue and some excellent acting. The ending may be a surprise for many viewers.

This little precode film deals with the unfortunate fact that hormonal activity peaks at the same time in life that critical decisions must be made. In this case we have a couple half-way through college - Betty and Mike - that are starting to suffer certain "urges". Mike wants to get married, but Betty thinks that if Mike drops out of college to marry her, he'll regret it someday and she wants them to wait. In the meantime, popular coed Duke Galloway sees an opportunity in this romantic intermission and starts to put the moves on Betty.All of this angst leads Mike to drink heavily one night and fall for the charms of local waitress Dora Swale. Dora is OK with the fact that this is a one night stand, but just as Mike is getting ready to leave her house, Dora's dad appears, and he is not at all happy about the situation.If this seems very frank and daring for 1932, it is. There are no big name stars in this film. The biggest name is John Halliday as Professor David Matthews who acts as a father figure to Mike, even though he is given to handing out confusing advice. He and Barbara act as an analog for the possible future Mike and Betty - they were in love and waited to finish their education. After graduation they found that there was nothing to pick up where they had left off, and are now heading into middle age alone. The best lines go to Arline Judge as Dora. She doesn't look like her, but Arline's voice, her movements, and definitely her attitude are precode Stanwyck.I've already mentioned how things stay the same - the hormonal challenges of late adolescence/early adulthood. How things have changed is the lesson this film seems to teach - that college is optional and even a possible obstacle in seeking true happiness, and maybe it was in 1932 when people married earlier and needed less skill to make a living wage. Today, however, it is an essential rite of passage to a middle class lifestyle, and even then there are no guarantees.

Even for pre-Hayes code cinema, this one is particularly smutty. Not to say there's nudity or whatever, but the sexuality positively drips off the screen, and very little is said which doesn't have to do with intercourse of one sort or another. They probably had fun making this one. Highly recommended if you can find it. Thanks to the American Film Institute for their preserving this film.