writers_reign Review of These Wilder Years

These Wilder Years (1956)

They Sirk Him Here, They Sirk Him There ...

[5/10 · 14 August 2008]

By 1956 the Studio System was locked in a dead heat with the Big Bands in a race for obsolescence. At the height of the SS Stanwyck was Paramount and Cagney Warners and never the twain ... In addition this soaper manque is not exactly typical Metro fodder and watching it one has the distinct feeling that MGM had somehow managed to woo Douglas Sirk away from Universal but he had sold only his 'name' and left his style behind. With no back-story/build-up of any kind Cagney walks into Scene #1 and announces to his Board - he's a steel tycoon - that he's taking a vacation of right now. He has taken it into his head to trace the boy he fathered twenty years previously so right away we have the makings of a conflict. Neither Cagney nor Stanwyck, who runs the orphanage that handled the transaction, seem able to work up much of a sweat about the issues involved but even cruising they are more effective than this generation of actors at full throttle. It's as good a time-waster as any and better than some.