DKosty123 This movie came a year after Newman became a big name in movies. With 4 films in 1958 and Newman actually is one of the few stars who really got started more on live television broadcasts. This was really Paul first starring role. Like his live television, he carries this film very well.With Barbara Rush and Alexis Smith on for powerful female support, there are some really great moments. I especially like the moment when he turns down the advances of a married woman by telling her if they are to connect, she must divorce her older husband. This moment is played well in this movie.There are lots of good moments, with the only weakness being the ending. Richard Deacon is the key witness in the trial but the testimony being proof for a murder is especially weak. Robert Vaughn as the Defendant is excellent in a small role, but an important one.Newman fans should check this one out, as it does show how good an actor he was, and if they really want to see him at his best, try and get a hold of his live television roles on DVD. He is at his best live, I wish other than US Steel -Bang The Drum Slowly, I have never gotten to see anything live from Newman though I highly recommend that one which is on DVD.

moonspinner55 Awfully corny melodrama adapted from Richard Powell's book has Paul Newman turning from crafty tax-attorney into hot-shot trial lawyer, defending buddy Robert Vaughn on a murder rap. It's rather incredible this passed muster in 1959--it looks like an episode from TV's "Playhouse 90", what with cheap sets, ugly designs and a stilted direction from veteran Vincent Sherman. Terrific players (including Barbara Rush, Diane Brewster and, in a disappointingly brief role, Brian Keith) help compensate for the dreariness, though some of the dialogue has a little snap. Best performance is turned in by a cunning Alexis Smith, doing solid work as a tycoon's wife who has her eyes set on Paul. ** from ****

bkoganbing The Young Philadelphians is a curious mixture of Ross Hunter like soap opera together with a Tennessee Williams like hero and surprisingly enough it works most of the time.Paul Newman is the hero whose very existence on the planet is a source of scandal. His mother Diane Brewster was disinherited by her husband's family when he killed himself on their wedding night. Newman's had to scrap for what's his in the world and isn't above using the bedroom to advance himself.He's got a friend in Robert Vaughn who's also a black sheep in his Philadelphia Main Line family who gets himself in a jackpot when he's arrested for murdering his uncle. Newman, who's a tax lawyer, gets some on the job training in a criminal case, in defending Vaughn. Like Katharine Hepburn in Suddenly Last Summer, characters like John Williams, Robert Douglas, and Frank Conroy seem above all to want to protect the family name. Hepburn was willing enough to have a lobotomy performed on Elizabeth Taylor and this crew seems ready willing and eager to send Vaughn to prison or the electric chair for the same reasons. Straight out of Tennessee Williams.Newman shows some of the flash in his courtroom scenes, especially in his examination of Richard Deacon that he later showed in his Oscar nominated The Verdict which is my personal Paul Newman favorite. He trips Deacon the witness up with a piece of legal wizardry worthy of Perry Mason.In the prologue of the film when the death of Adam West is shown on his wedding night to Diane Brewster the film is very discreet as to his reasons for doing what he did. It's explained this was a marriage arranged by his mother for the purpose of carrying on the family name even if it meant wedding a girl not from their crowd. He explains he has no interest in his wife and promptly goes out and dies in a speeding car crash. Today it would be far more explicit to say that maybe Adam West's character was gay. But we had the code in place back then and gay was invisible.Robert Vaughn got an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and his harrowing scenes with Newman in the drunk tank got him that. He lost to Hugh Griffith for Ben-Hur, but it was the first real notice he got and the start of a long career. Look for good performances by Alexis Smith as the older woman Newman woos, Billie Burke as the daffy dowager, and Barbara Rush whose on and off relationship with Newman guides most of the film.The Young Philadelphians is kind of old fashioned today, somewhat dated, but still is good entertainment and recommended here.

Hollywoodcanteen1945 The Young Philadelpians which was made in 1959 is tame by today's standards; out-dated for sure. Yet, when it was made it was not only controversial, but very daring for it's time; dealing with homosexuality, child-birth out of wed-lock, mental illness, adultery, suicide and alcohol abuse.Paul Newman was out-standing in the role of Anthony Judson Lawrence, a career driven lawyer, whose mother is hiding a deep dark secret. Newman is at his physical prime; handsome and lean. Everyone in this classic black and white soap opera was great. Just a really entertaining rainy night movie.