New Morals for Old (1932) User Reviews (16)

the circle of life precode style

[AlsExGal · 5/10 · 24 December 2012]

This is a very ordinary precode involving the wealthy Thomases. The parents (Lewis Stone and Laura Hope Crews) are worried about their two grown children. Son Ralph (Robert Young) as well as daughter Phyl (Margaret Perry) are taken to partying every night and sleeping until noon. Ralph's individual demon is that he fancies himself more than a designer of wallpaper at the family business - he wants to go to France and become a great artist. Phyl's problem is that she is in love with a married man (David Newell as Duf) whose wife won't let him go. Both kids wind up doing what they want to do in spite of their parents' objections. Ralph does go to France to study art. Phyl sets up house with Duf with no hope of marriage in sight. So far this is an extraordinarily ordinary precode. So what makes it worthwhile? For one, one kid winds up with their hopes dashed the other gets their wish. Which one triumphs and which one does not and how this happens is the unexpected part. Also very interesting is a tryst Ralph has with a French neighbor when he is in Paris. That neighbor happens to be played by Myrna Loy and the nature of the tryst is what is so unexpected. In one scene she is complaining about the noise Ralph is making. In the next scene it is the next morning and she and Ralph are bouncing around in their pajamas! What's more we never see the French girl again in Ralph's life. How realistic that not every sexual encounter leads to either tragedy or the altar, which is something that would never be allowed in the production code era.

The ending is warm although abrupt as the kids grow a few years older and seem to be gradually becoming their parents. Plus both kids grow a genuine appreciation for Aunty Doe (Elizabeth Patterson), someone they ridiculed just a few years before as silly and out of touch.

This one is an OK time passer, but there really is nothing out of the ordinary to distinguish it from other precodes of the era other than the chance to see two stars just starting out - Myrna Loy and Robert Young - and one star of the stage making a rare film appearance - Margaret Perry.

Telling example of pre-Code morality

[mgmax · 6/10 · 15 October 1999]

Though hardly an example of pre-Code films at their raciest, the matter-of-fact treatment of looser sexual mores in this family drama may reveal more about its times than a more exploitative film would. A few years later Lewis Stone, the father here, would play the father of the most straightlaced and retrograde family in movie history (Andy Hardy's); yet here he is shown as accepting the idea that his son would go off to Paris to be an artist (and be shown breakfasting the next morning with his female neighbor, in pajamas) and that his daughter would have an affair with a married man, musing to his wife that they just have to get used to the different morals of different times. No masterpiece, but a sweet and enjoyable film that may remind you of James Ivory's Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.

The Kids Are All Right

[boblipton · 6/10 · 14 June 2022]

Lewis Stone and Laura Hope Crewes are a couple of old fuddy-duddies. They worry about their children, Robert Young and Margaret Perry. They seem to spend all their time in speakeasies, and Young doesn't pay attention to business as he ought to. Then Stone dies, and Young busts loose in Paris, intent on becoming a painter, and meeting exotic Myrna Loy, who turns out to be American. Miss Perry brings home a man, and Miss Crewes suggests separate bedrooms, for propriety's sake. They say no.

In title and attitudes, this is pretty much a pre-code movie, but being MGM, and based on a play by John van Druten, is it going to be as wild as it sounds at the beginning? This is pretty much second-string MGM, with Young announcing he wants to run barefoot through Miss Loy's hair. Well, who can blame him?

Gap

[dbdumonteil · 12 August 2011]

The generation gap in 1932.Two retired people see their children (a boy and a girl) turn their back on mom's nice rice pudding and want to marry a divorcée (the girl) and to go and study art in Paris (the boy).

All in all ,neither the obsolete precepts of the old nor the modern way of life of the young are satisfying .Travel broadens the mind ,for sure,but when your talent is mediocre ,the best of art professors cannot do anything for you ,even if he teaches (or is supposed to) in French.And it's almost probable that the two rebels will become their parents without a sound.The last pictures glorify Family with a capital F.

Was there a purpose to this film?!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 8 April 2013]

After watching "New Morals for Old", I was left wondering just what was the point of this movie. I really am not sure....and wonder if the writer was equally undecided!

The film concerns a family of rich folks who seem to have way too much money and way too much time on their hands. Although the father (Lewis Stone) worked to make his fortune, his kids (Robert Young and Margaret Perry) seem like spoiled and rather amoral jerks. The son wants to run off to Paris to become a painter and the daughter wants to sleep with a married man. While the parents can't understand this sort of behavior, in this very permissive family, they really don't say much of anything about this. Eventually, the father dies and the son finally takes off to paint. And,...well, there really isn't much more to the film.

The film MIGHT be saying that a new, selfish and permissive age is coming or it might have tried saying that the parents were just old fashioned and behind the times--but I can't be sure. The movie seemed to take an amoral approach--showing the kids' behaviors in a very direct and non-judgmental manner. Well, I might have felt that was okay for the son but the film had a definite Pre-Code attitude about adultery, that's for sure. The bottom line is that I objected far less to the kids' actions and more that there was no sort of point to any of this...none.

O tempora! O mores!

[Handlinghandel · 7/10 · 18 October 2004]

For a while this excellent, still moving and relevant antique seems to be a precursor to the notion of the Generation Gap. The parents did it one way. The children do it another.

But it is racy and, though contrived and melodramatic, fascinating.

It is also the single most appealing performance by Robert Young I've ever seen. He did pot have the self-satisfied smirk of several decades of later work. He is very plausible. My second-favorite of his movies is the charming "Lady Be Good," in which he truly seems to enjoy working with Ann Sothern.

"New Morals" still has power and does not deserve its obscurity.

Did this movie inspire C.S. Lewis?

[dawh1 · 1/10 · 10 December 2016]

In 1958 C.S. Lewis published a book called Four Loves, taken from radio talks he had given previously. He treats four different kinds of love: affection, friendship, erotic love, and agape, the Christian love. In each section he talks about what that kind of love could be and what it looks like when it goes bad. There was so much in this movie that reminded me of the things he said about affection and family life when it goes bad, that I think he must have seen this movie and parts of it stuck in his head. Even some of the lines are the same. "Why are they always out? Why do they seem to prefer every house in the neighborhood to their own?" This is a glaring example of parents who seem to think that their adult offspring are duty-bound to stay with them and provide them with a life instead of going out and making their own lives. I kept wanting to say to the kids: "You two are adults. If you want to move out of the house, what's stopping you?" And to the parents: "You raised these two to be grownups and now they are. Accept it." I found it extremely unsatisfying.

Your parents were right...

[HotToastyRag · 7/10 · 18 April 2019]

Parents will have a tough time getting through New Morals for Old without staining a Kleenex or two with tears. The entire point of the film is that children never listen to their parents, even though their lessons are wise and worthy, and after they've seen a bit of life, they realize that their parents were right all along. If you hate your parents and don't want to eventually eat crow, you're not going to want to watch Robert Young and Margaret Perry do it in the movie. Watch something else tonight.

Margaret Perry is absolutely adorable, and even though she falls in love with a married man, David Newell, and becomes his mistress in a love nest, you can't help but love her. This was her first of two total films, and I have no idea why she didn't rocket to stardom. Not only is she cute to look at, but she has talent! In the movie, she really does feel bad about causing a rift in her family. She collapses in tears in her father Lewis Stone's lap when she tells him how she's living. Mother Laura Hope Crews won't receive David in the house and has a very strained relationship with her daughter forever after. Meanwhile, playboy Robert Young refuses to settle down and get a respectable job. He travels to Paris to become an artist and shacks up with the morally loose Myrna Loy.

If you like the message, this movie is worth watching. The acting is very good, and there are some pre-Code aspects that are sure to evoke a giggle. When Robert studies art, he attends the classic class to draw nudes, and since this movie was made in 1932, the model is shown. Myrna's ten minutes on the screen are also very raunchy, and the script makes no secret to her type of relationship with Bob.

Stinks

[utgard14 · 4/10 · 2 January 2014]

Boring old creaker about two terrible children (Robert Young, Margaret Perry) breaking their elderly parents' hearts. At least that's how I interpreted it. The point is a little muddled as it seems to be saying the younger generation has loose morals but the older is stuffy and old-fashioned. That the younger will eventually become the older and "rinse, lather, repeat" is the ultimate point, I suppose. Only worth seeing for early work by Young and Myrna Loy, as well as to see Judge Hardy with a son who doesn't listen to a word he says. Despite being pre-Code and having somewhat risqué subject manner, there's nothing here to get worked up over.

Certainly IS a pre code ... early R Young and M Loy...

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 13 December 2016]

The twenty-something-year-old children in the Thomas family are quite spoiled. "Ralph" (Robert Young) wants to sleep late and go off to France to illustrate books. "Dad" (Lewis Stone) is hurt that he won't be working in the family business. And daughter "Phyl" (Margaret Perry) is going off with "friends" on the weekends. Laura Crews is Mom, playing the guilt card on both kids, even more-so when Dad dies. Mom has this strong, upper crust, almost British accent, which doesn't really fit in with the rest of the family. This is certainly a pre-code film, highlighting a couple different issues that would be magically wiped away in just a couple years. Phyl has fallen in love with a married man, whose wife won't give him a divorce, and Ralph FINALLY heads off to Paree. This was one of Young's very early credited roles. Myrna Loy is in here with a VERY brief role. Odd. Such a very serious, dramatic film. Good stuff. Only five stars on IMDb as of today, but that only reflects 151 votes so far. Aunty Doe, who they made fun of, earlier on, comes to the rescue at the very end, and saves the day. It's not so bad. LOTS of talking. A couple of very abrupt edits. Great quality sound and picture. Directed ;by Charles Brabin.... he only directed a couple more years after this.

Sibling incest in the closet!

[mzcuriouz-108-272670 · 4/10 · 10 December 2016]

Phyl and her brother Ralph's bedroom play is so 30s flirty;) The Paris goodbye kiss is so smoldering hot. Tennessee Williams would love this so forbidden sexiness. The screenplay was based on the play "After All" by John Van Druten, author of "I Am A Camera" which was the basis of the musical "Cabaret". (I wonder what was left on the editing room floor.) What happened with Myra? There so many unanswered questions raised that it is not truly as predictable as it seems. All in all I consider it more of naughty tease. I was glad I could fast forward what was most totally predictable...and enjoy the fun of the queerness of it "After All".

Watch it to see early performances by Young & Loy

[mrcaw12 · 3/10 · 29 July 2022]

Just a quick note here. I fast forwarded through the movie actually. But did catch most of the plot twists. Robert Young was very young, mid 20s I believe in one of his earliest movies. I've always found Young a likeable star & think the label he got of "bland" was a bit overplayed. How tiresome if every male star were a Gable or Garfield! I can see why Robert Young had the career he did because he wasn't bland actually. He was just very natural and most of the time had a ready smile on his face. Myrna Loy unfortunately given practically no screen time, does manage to showcase her star power in the few minutes she's on the screen. And what a beauty! My biggest complaint with the movie actually is Margaret Perry. While she's competant enough she just doesn't generate any star power whatsoever. Strange how the camera can make some people a star and others not. Laura Hope Crews had a very large part in the movie and was very good. You can tell she had a long history of acting behind her. Lewis Stone was, well Lewis Stone with a name aptly suggesting his acting style, though, somehow still likeable. Again, the camera favors who it favors even though it doesn't seem to make sense. The movie is definitely a period piece with nothing particuarly interesting about the plot. That being said, it is interesting visually just to see the interior sets, the furniture, and also clothes etc. It's so strange looking at these interiors knowing that most everything is quality made. No plastic! Anyway, it certainly gives one a look into the past almost 100 years ago and yet, we find people are always the same and there's really not much, if any difference between these shadows from long ago and today. And it's always a treat to see Elizabeth Patterson in a movie (Mrs. Trumble from the I Love Lucy TV show).

Precode generation gap

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 18 December 2022]

The basic idea for this MGM precode, based on a play by John Van Druten, is that parents don't always understand their children. And the reverse is apparently also true- children don't always understand their parents. To say that a generation gap is occurring, well that would be an understatement.

The stuffy middle-aged folks are played by Metro stalwart Lewis Stone and Laura Hope Crews. They are decidedly stuck in their ways, but not so old-fashioned that they are entirely out of touch. At the same time, the couple's offspring (Robert Young and Margaret Perry) have their own ideas about how to live.

Mr. Young is particularly impressive, milking the more comedic aspects of his role as a lazy son with no real ambition in life. This includes no desire to take over his father's business. The carefree attitude that he exhibits is on full display when we see him and his sister shirk family obligations in favor of partying with their friends.

The party scenes are especially precode in nature. This is a hedonistic bunch of kids living in the here and now. They have no regard for the future...no sense of propriety or responsibility. As with most situations of this sort, reality sinks in. They start to learn that their actions eventually have consequences.

The daughter falls for a married man who eventually leaves his wife for her. But mother and father cannot accept such scandalous behavior under their own roof, so she must leave home to be with her lover. Her choice is shown in a sympathetic light, which of course would be verboten two years later in Hollywood after the production code was fully enforced.

Meanwhile the son chooses to leave the roost as well. In his case, he jets off to Paris to find himself and begin a career as an artist. He doesn't quite succeed and ends up returning home, more out of sorts than ever. So much for his attempt at a Bohemian lifestyle.

In some ways the expectations, disappointments and failures of these characters reminds me of Merchant-Ivory's MR. AND MRS. BRIDGE. In that later picture, a 'perfect' family is in continual danger of falling apart while trying to maintain a specific image and project successfulness to the outside world.

Interestingly, NEW MORALS FOR OLD shows the adult children come full circle. They mature to where they've gained a newfound appreciation of what came before and the importance of family. Perry's character becomes a mother, while Young's character learns a valuable lesson after after romancing a beautiful woman (Myrna Loy). What we have in the last few minutes on screen is an ironic happy ending.

What an Irritating Family

[view_and_review · 2/10 · 23 June 2023]

The title of this movie is funny. "New Morals for Old" refers to the morals of the young folks of the era. I couldn't help but think two things:

1.) If they could only see the youngsters of today--myself included (though I'm no longer young).

2.) I thought all children born before 1970 were the most well-behaved kids ever created. It seems that every generation believes that the youngsters of their day are worse than they were.

In "New Morals" Mr. And Mrs. Thomas (Lewis Stone and Laura Hope Crews) have two adult children who still live with them (that was the natural order of things for the wealthy). Mr. Thomas was in the wallpaper business and he wanted his son Ralph (Robert Young) to take over while Ralph wanted to be an artist. As for the second child, Phyllis aka Phyl (Margaret Perry), she was busy dating a married man. Both children upset their father and worried their mother. The whole lot of them were unbearable while the two women were positively unbearable.

As for Mrs. Thomas, she was an irritating nag. All she did was fuss about her two children who were well past adolescence. She was the type of mother you'd never want to become if you're a woman. After her husband died she sat alone in her home pining for her children to come back to her. It was sad and pathetic. Don't be that mother who can't let her kids go. Get a life.

As for Phyl, what else needs to be said? She was running around with a married man and treating it like it was a 100% normal part of getting older and learning about love.

No TF it isn't.

And the movie only helped support her hair-brained antics by only showing the illicit pair happy and in love without ever showing his wife (and possible kids), as though they were inconsequential. As if to say, "Yeah, he has a wife at home wondering where he is, but she doesn't matter." At least some movies set it up where the wife is a hag thereby making the infidelity more understandable. In this case they just pretended she didn't exist.

The movie kept up the facade up until Phyl and Duff (David Newell), the philanderer, happily announced their marriage as though it made everything kosher. The two married and had twins and looked like the most prototypical happy couple. No one would ever guess that they started on the grounds of infidelity. In fact, it wasn't even mentioned again.

Yeah, this movie was weak. Their aim was to show that children raised in a good home would always turn out OK when I beg to differ. First, there was nothing wrong with Ralph to begin with, he just wanted to chase his dream. That's not a moral issue unless his dream was to be a human trafficker. And second, Phyl never redeemed herself. Yes, she married the guy once he divorced his wife, but she was contentedly the side chick the entire time AND she would have kept on being the contented side chick indefinitely. When Duff kicked his wife to the curb the position of main chick opened up and she was the first in line to fill it. Does she not think that he won't try to fill that side chick position again as well?

I just couldn't get down with this movie and what it was peddling. I'm finding out there's a big disconnect between me and these high society types on film and this movie just made the gap wider.

Free on Odnoklassniki.

Say, Would You Get Your Lips Off Your Sister

[learningwithmrsmith · 3/10 · 10 July 2022]

The title promises some norm bashing culture shift, but it seems the new morals are indistinguishable from the old. Will this generation be the first to NOT become their parents?

Robert Young comes across as a whimpering, squeaky voiced, na'er-do-well. Margaret Perry is the playful coquette sister in the expensive flattering clothes. They are both sleeping past the crack of noon and, get this, "going about."

This brother and sister show a great deal of physical attention to one another. They hug, dance, kiss and caress more than any of the romantic couples. Some of the kisses are full on the mouth. For these people "like you kiss your sister" has a whole new meaning.

ODDS AND ENDS

The party hosts explains a painting she'd overpaid for, "He didn't paint the goat, he painted the bleat."

Duff Wilson says "Can't we go someplace else?" Then he and Phyl move two feet to the left and kiss again.

Not sure where the down-low couple are staying. When the neighbor from the flat next door apologizes for the noise from the night before due to "a couple of out-of-town buyers" it seems that they're not in the best part of town. This neighbor offers Phyl a money making opportunity with some other Johns, uhhh friends (nothing new about those morals).

A bathtub is described as having "more rings than a pawn brokers widow."

It is a poignant moment when Mom dines at her empty table with a ticking clock, 1933 empty nest.

The art teacher insults Ralph, "You are not the first to mistake the desire for the ability." Then cuts him down in a way similar to what happened to me when a teacher called me a natural illustrator. Like Ralph, I can still quote the teacher's comment exactly.

The passage of time is shown with written panels. When Ralph goes to Paris it says "10 days later." Could this be how long it took for one to cross the Atlantic by ship?

SMOKING RITUAL

Here smoking is used to emphasize the sketchiness of a situation.

No smoking at all among the lead characters.

The siblings walk in to the swanky party where several women are seen puffing on their cigarillos. Women smoking is particularly edgy.

Two women puff heavily in the background when Young hits the buffet at the party.

Some smoking among the students in the life drawing class in Paris. I wonder if they have the ability?

Who played George Macintosh?

[worley1 · 15 June 2022]

There was a young man who was in two scenes in this movie that is uncredited, and I am trying to find out who he was. He had lines in both of his scenes. He appears first in the scene where Robert Young's character arrives in Paris at the art studio, just as the class is ending. The character/actor I am asking about was introduced as George Macintosh. He is short, young, dark haired, quite handsome, smiles a lot, and introduces Robert Young to the disinterested head of the art studio.