The Young Philadelphians

I probably should have written this last night and scheduled to go this morning, but as part of TCM's Star of the Month Salute to Paul Newman, they're running The Young Philadelphians tonight at 8:00 PM.

Newman plays Anthony Judson Lawrence, but the story begins back in 1924, nine months before Tony's birth. Kate Judson (Diane Brewster) gets married to wealthy "Main Line" Philadelphian Bill Lawrence (Adam West), much to the chagrin of policeman's son Mike Flanagan (Brian Keith), who loved Kate -- and the feeling was mutual, as Kate married up for socioeconomic reasons. However, it turns out that Bill can never love any woman. (This being the 50s, the movie can't call him gay.) So she runs off to see Mike and get knocked up, while Bill drives off and kills himself in a car crash. The Lawrences effectively disowns Kate.

Kate raises Tony to be ambitious, and Tony winds up going to Princeton and becoming a top student, while working summers for Mike's construction company, not knowing Mike is actually his father. One day, socialite Joan Dickinson (Barbara Rush) gets in a fender-bender with one of the construction trucks, and when Tony helps out, it's love at first sight. Especially when they meet again at a swanky soirée where he finds she's technically engaged. Meanwhile, we meet Tony's best friend from Princeton, Chester Gwynn (Robert Vaughn), one of the idle rich who is viewed by his parents as untrustworthy. Tony plans to elope with Joan, but their parents convince Tony to delay the wedding until after graduation. This give's Joan's fiancé a chance to marry her, leaving Tony in the lurch.

Tony realizes that the only way he's going to make it in life is to become a relentless bitch, stepping on anybody who dares try to get in his way. First up is Donetti (Paul Picerni), a fellow law student whom Tony cheats out of a plum research assistant job. Tony goes on to try to have an affair with the boss' wife (Alexis Smith in a small role despite being third-billed), while Donetti eventually becomes a prosecuting attorney. Tony also goes in with a different law firm than the one Joan's father runs, and steals one of his oldest clients (Billie Burke).

But his past is going to come back to haunt him. He and Chester both went off to fight in Korea, and Chet lost an arm. It caused him so start drinking even more heavily than before, resulting in a call one night from the drunk tank, begging Tony to defend him in the trial for murdering his father. The shocking secrets of Main Line society are going to come out, as well as the secrets of Tony's own life....

The Young Philadelphians is a potboiler that's moderately interesting, but a movie where it's also understandable why it's not one of Newman's best-remembered films. Newman doesn't do anything notably wrong here, but the script borders on silly at times, consistently threatening to careen into melodrama. The one thing that really doesn't help either is that the movie is in black and white and really screams for lush color. It's up there with things like Ada in the "I've seen it once now, and have no great desire to see it again" category.

The Young Philadelphians has been released to DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive.