As Young as You Feel

• Directed by Harmon Jones
• June 15, 1951

An elderly printer concocts an elaborate scheme to avoid mandatory retirement.

At 76 minutes As Young as You Feel doesn’t waste too much time. It moves rather swiftly yet not so fast it glosses over anything it should not. Like any good comedy the plot of the main character spirals out of hand. Before you know it there are repercussions for those beyond the initial schemer, but this is a safe little family comedy with nothing too offensive or upsetting.

This feels like the pilot for a TV show more than it does a theatrical release. Maybe on some level it was intended as such but got dumped in theaters instead. If you’re expecting this to be a Marilyn Monroe vehicle it’s not. Her part as Acme Printing Services secretary Harriet could have been handled by any number of never was Hollywood actresses of the time. I have always felt she had incredible comic timing and was just generally good. Underutilized here.

It takes a little bit before Marilyn Monroe-arguably the most famous person in this movie-shows up and she’s just a secretary. Her performance is a lot less breathless and vapid than she is known for. In fact her voice is noticeably different. She displays none of her comedic skills and only gets to be the object of one gag.

The real star is Monty Woolley as John R. “Grandpa” Hodges. He’s the one that gets the ball rolling and causes chaos. He wanted to do something to make a change and understood that there was a strong possibility he might not benefit from it but others could. But As Young as You Feel is more than just about the plot to get a job back.

In the process Grandpa finds a little bit of what he’s been missing. The man’s been a widower for 25 years and hasn’t really gotten out. He finds a certain new enthusiasm by impersonating the head of the parent company. All the characters have been neglectful of the ones they love or just focusing on the wrong things. Through their interactions with Grandpa they learn that they’ve been wrong about a few things.

As Young as You Feel has some talent in the cast. We have Thelma Ritter, Marilyn Monroe, and David Wayne as Joe Elliott. Serious talent either at the height of their game or on their way up. Joe does not want to marry Alice Hodges (Jean Peters) until he can support her and she can become a housewife. That doesn’t upset her. What does is when he says that a man should be able to support his wife before they get married. Today I think the wanting her to become a housewife would be the anger moment. What do I know?

Ritter herself was a gifted character actress with a list of classic films attached to her name that would make any artist envious to this day. As John’s daughter-in-law Della she’s a little under used here in a similar fashion to Monroe. She’s adding color to the role but adding color to a role is not enough here.

Wayne as Joe is probably the second most important character in this movie. Much of the comedy comes from him and his efforts to convince others that Grandpa is impersonating a major corporate figure and nobody believing him for one reason or another. In the age of readily accessible info such a bold con may be unfathomable but in a time when the sum of human knowledge was not accessible by something in your pocket it was quite plausible. Wayne’s double takes and expressions add to the overall humor of this genuinely funny movie. Even today you will still get a laugh out of watching this.

When it comes to As Young as You Feel, it gets a little deeper than forgettable fluff. There’s a lot of discussion of the issues of the time that are not that different from what concerns people today. It deals with corporate bureaucracy with a plot revolving around one man who lost his job because of mandatory retirement and isn’t ready to retire. It is about how people have value despite their age.

You may be wondering how this resolves itself. Grandpa manages to create a situation whose positive repercussions make it impossible for him to be punished even though he probably should be a little bit. By the end of the movie Grandpa gets his job back and everybody has grown a little bit. Grandpa even manages to right the head of the company who himself was failing to see that he was not valuing all the people that worked for him as long as they could work. 

If there is anything I would’ve liked to have been added/done different it would have been for Grandpa to find love again. After all per the movie he had been single for 25 years (mom died at about 40?!) and while everybody else is happily in love he goes back to his job and living in a room in his son’s house. He was offered the opportunity for a cake job in a major city and chooses to go back to that?!

As Young as You Feel may be no cinematic classic but you will have a good time. You may not go and watch it again, but you will enjoy yourself with it at least once.