Young at Heart

Plot synopsis:
When songwriter Alex Burke (Gig Young) enters the lives of the musical Tuttle family, each of the three daughters falls for him. The family lives in the fictional town of Strafford, Connecticut. Alex's personality is a match for Laurie Tuttle (Doris Day), as both she and Alex are seemingly made for each other. When a friend of Alex's, Barney Sloan (Frank Sinatra), comes to the Tuttle home to help with some musical arrangements, complications arise. Barney's bleak outlook on life couldn't be any more contradictory to Alex's, and Laurie tries to change his negative attitude. Meanwhile, Laurie's two other sisters, Fran (Dorothy Malone), who is engaged to Bob, and Amy (Elisabeth Fraser), have feelings for Alex. The family welcomes Barney into their lives, but a feeling of genuine self-worth escapes him, though he is falling in love with Laurie. Alex proposes to Laurie and she accepts, which causes Fran to finally marry Bob, and devastates Amy. Aunt Jessie is the only one who knows Amy loves Alex. When Laurie goes to see Barney about attending the wedding, he tells her he loves her and that Amy loves Alex, but Laurie doesn't believe him until she goes home and sees Amy crying. She then leaves Alex at the altar and elopes with Barney. At Christmas, Laurie and Barney go home for the holiday. Laurie tells Amy how much she loves Barney and that she is pregnant, though she hasn't told Barney yet. Amy has since fallen in love with Ernie. Alex is also there for the holiday and has found success. With a black cloud perpetually hanging over his head, Barney decides to go with Bob to take Alex to the train. He drops Bob off at the store and after dropping Alex at the train, decides to kill himself, feeling that Laurie would be better off with Alex, as he would be a better provider. Barney drives into oncoming traffic during a snowstorm with his windshield wipers off. Barney lives, and with a newfound affirmation of life, finally writes the song he had been working on, finding his self-esteem in the arms of Laurie and their new baby.
=== Original ending ===
The character of the self-destructive Barney Sloan was originally written to die at the end of the film when Sloan drives into on-coming traffic during a snow-storm. Sinatra, whose characters in his two previous films (From Here to Eternity [1953] and Suddenly [1954]) perished at the end, thought Sloan should live and find happiness. Sinatra's growing influence in Hollywood was enough to have the ending re-written to accommodate his wishes.

Tags: romantic

Review:
This is a very re-watchable movie with a fine cast - Doris Day, Gig Young, Ethel Barrymore, Brian Keith etc.The standard songs are joined by some new ones written for the production - and they too are a total delight.
He quietly falls in love with kindhearted, upbeat Laurie Tuttle (Doris Day) who lives in a small town with her cheery family (father, aunt and two sisters).
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.
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.
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..
Unconvincing musical drama, a remake of 1938's "Four Daughters", has bright, cheery Doris Day picking brooding Frank Sinatra for a suitor over bright and cheery Gig Young.
There are some nice floaty songs, a few teary scenes and overall a nice mix of everything a good film needs, without anything harsh thrown in.Frank Sinatra and Doris Day are totally believable throughout and compliment each other perfectly.
In this case the three sisters and their infatuation with Gig Young, Doris Day's commitment to Frank Sinatra, and Sinatra's decision.
A musicalization of a classic “woman’s picture” is about as unappetizing a prospect as can get for me film-wise, but the polished Hollywood expertise here wins out in the end and makes for a refreshing and appealing movie that I had long underestimated (it was shown several times on Italian TV but I never bothered with it).Doris Day and, especially, Frank Sinatra are well-matched as star-crossed lovers in small-town America; Day comes from a classically-trained musical family headed by Robert Keith and including Dorothy Malone (with spinster aunt Ethel Barrymore watching maternally from the sidelines).
Amiable popular music composer Gig Young bursts in on their quiet, happy family life (all the girls naturally fall for his charms) but this is further exacerbated by the belated introduction of his arranger pal, embittered long-time loser Frank Sinatra.
Robert Keith is really no match for Claude Rains – who had played the father in Michael Curtiz’s original FOUR DAUGHTERS (1938) – but Sinatra does manage to make John Garfield’s star-making, Oscar-nominated turn his own.Curiously enough, the screenwriters of YOUNG AT HEART – Julius J.
Naturally, both Day and Sinatra get to sing in the film but they only have a modest duo of sorts at the very end; incidentally, I was let down by the finale not just because of its improbable “all’s well that ends well” qualities but also because, after Sinatra is seen toiling at his magnum opus throughout the whole movie, the result is just a corny love song!
The music is great, and while Young at Heart is one of my favorite Frank Sinatra tunes, Frank's rendidtion of Gershwine's Someone to Watch Over Me might be the best number in the movie.
Frank Sinatra is great as the self-hating Barney Sloan, and Doris Day as Laurie Tuttle..well, she's just perky.The downparts of this movie are made up for in great songs.
The acting, especially of the gifted Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and Gig Young was absolutely incredible.
I think you can guess what happens next.Ethel Barrymore, Dorothy Malone, and Robert Keith make up the adult family chaperones—would you leave your three daughters alone in the house with two strange men?—and a variety of composers contribute to the songs Frankie and Doris sing, although not every one was written for the film.
I will stay forever young at heart,thinking about this fine movie.At the age of nine,having already been captivated by Doris Day in "By The Light Of The Silvery Moon" and "Lucky Me",I was just old enough to appreciate her in this more mature outing.I had no knowledge of Frank Sinatra,the actor,other than mixed opinions as to his appeal.Therefore,my sympathy was with Doris all the way and this made the ambiguity of Sinatra's character all the more interesting for me.The real quality of "Young At Heart" is that it falls into a category all it's own.It is not real drama (until near the end),not a real comedy and not even what you might call a musical (there is always motivation behind the songs).It's a real credit to Doris Day that,in the face of real competition,she is able to shine brightly above the entire cast,and what a cast we have here.Ethel Barrymore,despite failing health,is the perfect 'Aunt Jessie',giving the story-line real focus and assurance.Dorothy Malone,in a relatively smallish role,has one affecting scene in the car where she admits to being unworthy of her husband (the amiable Alan Hale Jr.).Gig Young,never more charming than here,makes you sorry he loses the girl,even though one can almost understand where Doris is coming from.I'm not a Sinatra fan but he sings his songs inimitably and he is well cast as the melancholy,vagrant musician.Inwardly,I would have liked the alternate ending (hence my 9 rating) because Gig Young deserved better.However,I would not want to have missed the final duet between Doris and Frank ('You My Love' is a gorgeous song).All in all,a near perfect entertainment..
At the time they made this movie, Frank Sinatra and Doris Day were both on the cusp of filling out the iconic images they'd become in a few short years and show remarkable chemistry as (potentially...seemingly?) ill-fated lovers in a picture-postcard Connecticut town who get married and move to a tenement in Manhattan.
YOUNG AT HEART (1954) is an oddball family drama, incredibly downbeat in parts, with an ending that's 180 degrees away from the one in FOUR DAUGHTERS (1938) which, like this film, was adapted from Fannie Hurst's novel, "Sister Act." (Sinatra plays the part John Garfield played in the earlier film.) Except for a beach scene, it was all shot entirely on Warner Bros.
The strange but colorful supporting cast includes Ethel Barrymore, Gig Young, Robert Keith (Brian's dad), Dorothy Malone, Lonny Chapman, and pre-Skipper Alan Hale Jr. These actors are all fine, but I would have preferred to see the two stars in something that wasn't cluttered with so many other people.
YOUNG AT HEART's director, Gordon Douglas, went on to direct Sinatra in four films in the 1960s, including two of the star's best, ROBIN AND THE SEVEN HOODS (1964) and THE DETECTIVE (1968)..
And for Doris Day and Frank Sinatra fans - revel in the opportunity of seeing the only movie they ever made together.
Both are quite pleasant films but not a lot more.The film begins with a musical family--a father (Robert Keith), an aunt (Ethel Barrymore) and three daughters (Doris Day, Dorothy Malone and Elisabeth Fraser).
Just like in the first film, it's really not clear WHY Doris Day's character would jilt Young for Frank Sinatra's character since he isn't particularly likable.
Day is very good but Sinatra's theme song is among his very best, so it's hard to hate the film.
Epstein from a Fannie Hurst story called Sister Act. It stars Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Gig Young, Ethel Barrymore, Alan Hale Jr, Elisabeth Fraser and Dorothy Malone.
Plot has the charming Alex Burke (Young) enter the lives of the musical Tuttle family, where each of the three daughters start to be attracted to him.
It's also impeccably casted, Sinatra plays bitter and twisted to Day's sweet and straight, Young has charisma in abundance, and Barrymore is grand as the all seeing, all knowing head of the family, Aunt Jessie.
"Young at Heart" is a beautiful story about the more mature love that grows in the relations of 3 daughters, (Laurie, Fran, Amy) & their boy friends (Barney, Alex, Bob).
This 1954 movie musical with some beautiful songs, especially one of my favorites "Young at Heart".
Doris Day as Laurie Tuttle; Frank Sinatra as Barney Sloan; Gig Young as Alex Burke; Ethel Barrymore as Aunt Jessie Tuttle; Dorothy Malone as Fran Tuttle; Robert Keith as Gregory Tuttle; Elisabeth Fraser as Amy Tuttle; Alan Hale Jr. as Robert Neary; Lonny Chapman; as Ernest Nichols.(7.5 out of 10 out of TCM).
Frank Sinatra is great in this film-the songs:"It Was Just One Of those Things" "One For My Baby" "My Love" and the title track are some of the best examples of his talents.Sinatra and Day disagreed on the ending of the script and the time to start filming..
Hired by Young to do musical arrangements, he meets the Tuttle family and sulks his way into Doris Day's heart.
All in all, the various love triangles that evolve and dissolve and the several good tunes -- sung by Day and, in turn, Sinatra at a time in their careers when they were both in top form -- make for a very entertaining, a very enjoyable movie.
Incidentally, while "Young at Heart" ends happily, there is no mistaking that it is a remake of the 1938 Priscilla Lane, John Garfield vehicle "Four Daughters" -- also a very enjoyable movie without the same happy ending..
Only Ethel Barrymore as the aged aunt doesn't fit--she apparently mistook this for the set of "Long Day's Journey Into Night"--why is she there?But throw in a totally unlikely element--Frank Sinatra, and it works.
A very good story line nonetheless, nice costumes and set, also good song performances from both Frank Sinatra and Doris Day..
Musical drama/soap opera about three sisters (Doris Day, Dorothy Malone, Elizabeth Fraser) and the men they fall in love with--film concentrates on Day and her romances with Gig Young and Frank Sinatra.
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.
Everything looks perfect when a fun composer (Gig Young) takes a fancy to the youngest sister, Laurie (Doris Day).
The performances were spot on, with Frank Sinatra surly enough as Barney and the beautiful Doris Day sweet and sensitive as Laurie.
The Tuttles are a musical family: father Gregory (Robert Keith) and daughters Laurie (Doris Day), Fran (Dorothy Malone), and Amy (Elizabeth Fraser) are an instrumental quartet whose home lives are kept on even keel by non-musical Aunt Jessie (the legendary Ethel Barrymore.) When Laurie accepts a marriage proposal from handsome Alex Burke (Gig Young) it seems the most the family has to worry about is going from quartet to trio--a seemingly perfect set up for musical comedy.
The film was originally intended as a very direct remake of FOUR DAUGHTERS--but Sinatra greatly disliked the original story's ending and insisted on a rewrite.
FRANK SINATRA followed up his "From Here To Eternity" triumph by starring opposite DORIS DAY in a musical remake of "Four Daughters" called YOUNG AT HEART.
He gets even better song material than Day, including memorable versions of "Young at Heart" and "One for My Baby", but Day is compensated by a nice dramatic role that gets her brand of warmth and sincerity, as well as a duet with Sinatra on "You, My Love".ETHEL BARRYMORE is the elderly aunt and ROBERT KEITH is the father, while GIG YOUNG plays the young man that Day almost marries until she discovers that her sister is broken-hearted over their upcoming marriage.
This version of the tale has her succeed, avoiding the downbeat ending of the original in which the John Garfield character (played by Sinatra)died.It's pleasant, nostalgic and the kind of musical they never make any more.
Particularly sensitive performances from Sinatra, Day and Gig Young under Gordon Douglas' direction.
Seventeen years after John Garfield made his smoky screen entrance in "Four Daughters," and startled the movie world with his acidic performance, Frank Sinatra undertakes the role in a remake entitled, "Young at Heart."To me, it's a formula film, studio calculated to give stars Sinatra and Doris Day just the right amount of dramatic scenes interspersed with their favorite song numbers.Much of the public "bought it," and went with its patent soapy romanticism, while others weren't as smitten by its glossy contrivances.The cast here is top notch.
With Ethel Barrymore, Gig Young and Dorothy Malone as supports, lovely color and pretty sets, there's lots of heavy talent here.
Frank Sinatra plays Barney Sloan,a disillusioned song composer who falls in love with his partner's wife,who he eventually marries.But,his low self-confidence plagues him..
This is just a wonderful love story and perfect for Sinatra.The songs are great(My Love,One For My Baby and Young At Heart).Doris Day is okay,but she's not the greatest match for Frank..
However, even this would have been hard to take much longer.During this early part of the film Alex (Gig Young) appears as the son of an old friend of Day's father (Robert Keith).
His self-pitying attitude is actually refreshing here, albeit it may not be helping the character in his own life.In the cafe where he plays, while living in Connecticut to work for Alex, he does 3 standards--"Someone to Watch Over Me," "Just One of Those Things," and "One for My Baby, and One More for the Road."  Well, Gershwin, Porter and Arlen never had it so good--these are definitive performances of songs all the big singers did.
The cake in YOUNG AT HEART is not nearly so alive--it may have been prepared by Aunt Jessie (Ethel Barrymore) but it still looks "bought."  These 2 films were made within a few years of each other.
Seems Two Into One DOES Go. 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.
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.
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.
I have always liked Frank Sinatra and Doris Day both for their musical and acting qualities !.
Gig Young would follow 13 years after that.This is a highly entertaining film and the singing by Frank and Doris will just woo you to no end.
This was rather tacky.Amazing that all 3 sisters fell for Mr. Young, but no one wound up with him.Note that David Keith would co-star with Doris Day the following year, as Barney Loomis, family friend in the fantastic "Love Me or Leave Me," and then co-star with Dorothy Malone, as her father again, in Malone's Oscar winning "Written on the Wind." Of course, Malone wasn't as sweet there; she ultimately caused his demise.
There has been much discussion on whether Sinatra's character, Barney, should have died in that head on collision, as in the original ending, or lived, without apparent lingering disabilities, as we see in the film.
This film is a remake of 1938's Four Daughters which had Priscilla Lane in Doris Day's part and John Garfield in Frank Sinatra's part as the morose pessimistic musician who believes if not for bad luck he'd have none at all.
The film follows the plot of "Four Daughters" pretty closely, with Laurie (Doris Day) eloping with melancholy Barney Sloan (Frank Sinatra) in order to clear the way so that the man she really loved and was planning to marry (Gig Young as Alex) might fall in love with older sister Amy. Laurie decides to do this after she realizes Amy is in love with Alex.These attempts at manipulations of the heart seldom work out well, and such is the case here.
The happy ending is a terrible contrivance, but it would have worked much better with Garfield's Mickey than with Sinatra's.Nor did I ever once feel any chemistry between Frank Sinatra and Doris Day that convinced me they truly were a loving couple who I wanted to cheer for.
Basically Alex Burke (Gig Young) enters the lives of the Tuttle family, led by father Gregory (Robert Keith) with his three daughters Fran (Dorothy Malone), Amy (Elisabeth Fraser), and Laurie (Doris Day).
Laurie and Alex seem to be made for each other, and become engaged, but things change when his friend, musical arranger Barney Sloan (Frank Sinatra) comes along.
You can almost agree with Sinatra concerning the ending, but you can't see it going any other way, so this is certainly a film to try and enjoy for songs, including one or two Day and Sinatra duets.
The music is excellent, this is the movie that turned me into a Frank Sinatra fan, in particular the scene where he sings "One for my Baby" in the noisy bar.