dougdoepke I guess I was expecting a gritty tale from the height of the Great Depression, 1934. Then too, I'm seeing a First National Production and conflate that with their merger with tough-minded Warner Bros. Unfortunately, the movie unfolds more like a soap opera than the gritty Warner Bros tale I was expecting. Four buddies graduate college expecting easy avenues to go along with their gilded status. Instead, they get the uncertainties and shoestrings that the working class experiences as breadlines and park benches. For sure there's lots of story potential here. But instead, of gravitas we get lightweight characters bouncing around in amiable fashion. In fact, there are two sobering moments reflecting the desperate times, but these get folded quickly into the general bonhomie characterizing the film as a whole.A couple of conjectures on the film. For one, it's Code-Approved in censorship's first year of Hollywood enforcement. Unfortunately, that same censorship worked to empty movie content of anything that might reflect on moral, political, or economic sacred cows, and was in fairly rigorous effect for the next 30-years. Thus the film may have had reason to over-compensate away from its grim potential. Second, a large number of personal stories are crammed into a short runtime, 75-minutes. Thus, from a more narrative standpoint, focus bounces from here to there, weakening those few more serious moments. Anyway, folks like me who may be looking for insight into a Depression era upper-class are apt to be disappointed. Too bad, because today's college graduates face many of the same bleak prospects, minus the assured Hollywood ending.

calvinnme ... and this fast moving little film using Warner Brothers' contract talent hits all of the important points of young people starting out with big dreams and what becomes of them all in the first couple of years after graduation. Young people today can probably see many parallels in the experience of the seven young people followed in this film versus what they experience today trying to elbow their ways into careers.The story starts out on graduation day for four college seniors and buddies. Franchot Tone plays Bob, a guy who wants to be a newspaperman and has a crush on the sister (Margaret Lindsay) of fellow graduate Fred (Robert Light), who is all set up to go into the stock brokerage firm of his father. Tom (Ross Alexander) aspires to be an architect and marry his girl Trudy (Jean Muir) as soon as possible. Finally there is "Smudge" (Dick Foran) who has been the big college football player for four years and wants to parlay that into a coaching job.Some of them - with difficulty and perseverance - get jobs in New York City - strangely enough this is the destination of all of them, none of the jobs pay that well, and roommates are a necessity in such austere times, often in boarding houses with a great view of the brick wall across the alley. Romance is found for all but Fred - he has the least screen time - but money is the roadblock for matrimony for all of them.The film does a great job of interweaving the stories of all of the graduates, but the focus stays mainly on Tone's character, Bob, as a couple of times he has the distasteful task of being the action reporter on the scene of some tragedy related to his friends or their families. It is a harrowing journey but it has a rather upbeat ending with, ironically, Ross Alexander's character telling Bob to keep a stiff upper lip. This is ironic because Ross Alexander ended his own life just a little more than two years after this film was released.If you liked the gritty reality of "Wild Boys of the Road" I think you'll like this film too. Highly recommended.

boblipton This Warner Brothers soap opera about four recent college graduates trying to make their ways in the depression and their lady loves is one of their A pictures but, while competently written and acted, is too diffuse to make a great picture. The large cast, headed by Franchot Tone on loan from MGM, has a myriad of interconnected stories whose frequently genteel handling is nowhere near as interesting as their earthy, snappy-pattered B movies of the period.One nice point of the movie is that money is a real issue in this movie and the actors show it. Even Tone, who spent most of his career playing people who just happened to be out of pocket money at the moment, looks and behaves like a man whistling the dark and Dick Foran is excellent as a man who is defeated by the world. The woman are very good too, particularly Jean Muir. However the movie, while never descending below competence, never manages any moments that strike home.

gerrythree TCM finally aired "Gentlemen Are Born" on 9 August 2011 as one of 24 hours' worth of Ann Dvorak movies, she being the star of the day. When Darryl Zanuck was in charge of production at Warner Bros., he would have never allowed this pathetic movie to go into production. The credits say Alfred E. Green directed this movie, so he must have, although I find that hard to believe.Somehow, Franchot Tone got the starring role here, maybe Jack Warner thought he would lend some prestige to the movie, what with Tone usually working at MGM then. Franchot Tone's acting here is horrible, his thin-lipped smile makes him look like he is trying out for a role as the next Dracula. For me, the high point of the story was when Tone's character, Bob Bailey, working as reporter, asks the businessman father of one of his college chums if he is familiar with rumors linking the father's business to a bank that just failed. Mr. Harper, the father, tells Tone to wait in the outer office with his son while he goes into his private office. Next thing you know,Harper jumps out the window and Bailey is telling his editor by phone that Harper accidentally fell out the window, a story the editor isn't buying.Margaret Lindsay is in this movie also and she looks great, even if her role is totally unreal. At least she doesn't end up like another college chum of Tone's played by Dick Foran. Foran's character gets beaten up in a boxing match, is wrongly tied in to a truck theft ring and gets mistaken as a stickup man.Next time TCM shows this movie, avoid it.29 November 2011: Robert Lee Johnson, responsible for the story and screenplay of this turkey, floated from studio to studio as a screenplay writer. He probably thought this movie would put him on the Hollywood map, with its mix of pretentious characters and preposterous storyline, all played with a straight face by the actors here. Instead, this movie tanked and Johnson went on to a career as co-scriptwriter for hire at any studio hiring.If not for one voter here, my review would have scored all negative votes from the IMDbers who saw this movie. Darn it, too bad that one voter can't retract his positive vote. Those negative voters must live in world where it is the norm for crooked banksters to say say "excuse me" and then commit suicide by jumping out of their office window. If this movie were a comedy, that scene would have been a laugh riot. Trouble is, hack scriptwriter Johnson was being serious. This movie represents a real waste of director Alfred Green's talent.