Wednesday | October 18, 2006 9:00 pm

The Young in Heart

Screening on Film

Directed by Richard Wallace.
With Janet Gaynor, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Paulette Goddard.
US, 1938, 35mm, black & white, 90 min.

A witty, heartfelt screwball comedy from super-producer David O. Selznick, The Young in Heart was also Gaynor’s last released feature before her retirement from the movies—and marriage to famed fashion designer Gilbert Adrian—in 1939. Gaynor stars as the wily daughter in a family of high-class con artists intent on fleecing a kindly old widow (Broadway veteran Minnie Dupree in her showstopping screen debut) out of her vast fortune. An original downbeat conclusion, derived from the source novel, apparently tested so poorly in previews that Selznick reassembled the cast and shot a new, upbeat ending for the final cut of the film. The feature will be preceded by The Young in Heart short screen test.