Too Young to Love (film)

{{Infobox film

| name = Too Young to Love

| image = "Too Young to Love" (1959).jpg

| alt =

| caption = Original British quad poster

| native_name =

| director = Muriel Box

| producer = Herbert Smith
Sydney Box

| writer = Muriel Box
Sydney Box

| screenplay =

| story =

| based_on = {{based on |Pickup Girl (play)|Elsa Shelley}}

| starring = Thomas Mitchell
Pauline Hahn
Joan Miller

| narrator =

| music = Bruce Montgomery

| cinematography = Gerald Gibbs

| editing = Jean Barker

| studio = Welbeck Films Ltd.

| distributor = J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors (UK)

| released = {{film date|1959|ref1=}}

| runtime = 88 minutes

| country = United Kingdom

| language = English

| budget =

| gross =

}}

Too Young to Love is a 1959 British drama film set in New York. It was directed by Muriel Box and starring Pauline Hahn, Joan Miller, and Austin Willis.{{cite web|url=http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b6b8a9a0b|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120724211141/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b6b8a9a0b|url-status=dead|archive-date=2012-07-24|website=British Film Institute|title=Too Young to Love (1959)}}{{cite book|title= British cinema of the 1950s : the decline of deference|last1=Harper|first1= Sue|last2=Porter|first2=Vincent|date=2003|publisher= Oxford University Press|page=161}} It was based on the play Pickup Girl by Elsa Shelley.{{cite web|url=http://www.allmovie.com/movie/v114118|title=Too Young to Love (1960) – Muriel Box – Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related – AllMovie|author=Eleanor Mannikka|work=AllMovie}} An adaptation of the story was broadcast on British TV on 6 December 1957 in the ITV Television Playhouse series.

Plot

In New York, a policeman and a neighbour watch as a middle-aged man and a young man enter a house where a young girl can be seen getting ready for bed. After the young man leaves, the policeman enters the house to make an arrest. In a juvenile court hearing, it emerges that the 15-year-old Elizabeth has been found in a compromising position in her bedroom with a 47-year-old man, Mr Elliot. Elizabeth is one of four children in a struggling working-class family, her mother a hard-working cook, her father ran into debt while he was unemployed and found a job working in California. In the evenings, at the home of an older girl Ruby Lockwood, teenagers have frequent dance and necking parties, sometimes attended by older men. Eventually, Elizabeth recounts her story (in flashback) before the judge. Elizabeth's life is grim and joyless, and she has been neglected after the constant absence and lack of guidance from her parents. Led astray by Ruby, she has sex with a sailor and has an abortion. The judge is sympathetic, but a report sent to the judge puts Elizabeth's fate in the balance.

Cast

{{castlist|

Pauline Hahn as Elizabeth Collins
Joan Miller as Mrs. Collins
Austin Willis as Mr. Collins
Vivian Matalon as Larry Webster
Jess Conrad as Peter Martin
Sheila Gallagher as Ruby Lockwood
Alan Gifford as Mr. Elliot
Miki Iveria as Mrs. Martin
Cec Linder as Mr. Brill
Bessie Love as Mrs. Busch
Thomas Mitchell as Judge Bentley
Cal McCord as Owens
Robert Henderson as Kellerer
Bee Duffell as Society Matron (Uncredited)

}}

Original stage play

The film is based on Pickup Girl a 1944 American stage play by actress Elsa Shelley. Variety called it "restrained, thoughtful and distinguished."{{cite magazine|magazine=Variety|title=Pick up girl|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_variety_1944-04-26_154_7/page/38/mode/1up|page=38|date=26 April 1944}}

The play ran on Broadway in 1944. It ran for 198 performances.[https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/pick-up-girl-1423 Pick Up Girl] at IBDB[https://playbill.com/production/pick-up-girl-48th-street-theatre-vault-0000000265 Pickup Girl] at Playbill

The original British production was directed by Peter Cotes. It was denied a licence by the Lord Chamberlain but played at a theatre club where it was seen by Queen Mary. The play transferred to the West End and was a success in 1946.[https://theatricalia.com/play/hmd/pick-up-girl/production/16f3 Pick Up Girl productions] at Theatricalia Cotes later wrote the play "was sensationally successful, and transferred from our tiny theatre in Notting Hill to the West End. It was gratifying to see a smash hit in the heart of London with a team of actors, all of them good, some of them outstanding, but each willing to be a cog in the wheel, none of them playing for self."{{cite book|first=Peter|last=Cotes|page=19|url=https://archive.org/details/thinkingaloudfra0000cote/page/18/mode/2up?|year=1993|title=Thinking aloud : fragments of autobiography}}

1957 Television play

This was adapted for British television in 1957 starring Janet Munro.{{cite newspaper|newspaper=Manchester Evening News|date=4 January 1958|page=5|title=Max North's telereview}}{{cite news|newspaper=Manchester Evening News|date=21 June 1958|page=5|title=Play comes out of the can}}{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|date=6 January 2024|access-date=6 January 2024|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/girl-next-door-or-girl-gone-bad-the-janet-munro-story/|title=Girl-next-door or girl-gone-bad: The Janet Munro Story}} It was an episode of ITV Television Playhouse.{{cite news|title=Television preview|newspaper=Nottingham Evening News|date=6 December 1957|page=5}}[https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0908903/?ref_=m_tt_ch Pickup Girl 1957 TV play] at IMDB "We're doing the play on documentary lines," said Munro. "Some of the language is a bit violent, and I suppose some people might be a bit shocked. But it's a real life situation."{{cite news|newspaper=Daily Mirror

|date=6 December 1957|page=16|title=For adults only}}

The Daily Telegraph called it "often moving."{{cite news|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|date=7 December 1957|page=8|title=Play remains a documentary}}

Production

In 1946 Rank offered $50,000 for the film rights to the play with the idea being to have it made by Bryan Foy's unit at Eagle Lion.{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_variety_1946-10-16_164_6/page/2/mode/1up?|magazine=Variety|title=Rank would 'pick up girl'|date=16 October 1946|page=2}}

Film rights went to Sydney Box who decided to make the movie although it was still set in New York. Muriel Box, who wrote and directed, contacted Elsa Shelley throughout filming, to check on the dialogue. The British censor only passed it if Muriel Box edited out any mention of abortion or syphilis. Box refused and the censored backed down agreed that "the film might possibly act as a warning to them (young people) instead of an encouragement to moral laxity."{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/screenwriterinbr0000nelm/page/91/mode/1up?|page=91|title= The screenwriter in British cinema|last=Nelmes|first= Jill|year=2013 }}

Reception

Sue Harper and Vince Porter wrote " It was an uncompromising film about the social controls on female chastity, but its visual bleakness and sexual radicalism made it a box office failure."{{cite book|first1=Sue|last1=Harper|first2=Vincent|last2=Porter|page=161|url=https://archive.org/details/britishcinemaof10000harp_e3r5/page/161/mode/1up?|year=2003|title=British cinema of the 1950s : the decline of deference}}

Variety wrote "pic shows its stage pedigree only too clearly, being wordy and static. It is set in New York and, on the whole, the atmosphere of a N.Y. juvenile delinquency court is put over authentically. Without overmuch marquee value, the film will depend largely on its sex theme for success at the boxoffice. And it may have a struggle."{{cite magazine|magazine=Variety|title=Too Young to Love|date=16 March 1960|page=6|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_variety_1960-03-16_218_3/page/5/mode/1up?}}

TV Guide wrote, "Mitchell does all he can to keep this picture from failing, but it's not enough ... this is hurt mainly by its excess of courtroom scenes."{{cite web|url=http://www.tvguide.com/movies/too-young-to-love/review/120969/|title=Too Young To Love|work=TVGuide.com}}

Monthly Film Bulletin said "Apart from being pointlessly toned down, Elsa Shelley's old club theatre success has been adapted to the screen with depressingly unimaginative fidelity and an almost total lack of cinema sense. The result is another teenage problem picture in the manner of The Young and the Guilty, at its worst distinguished by Vivian Matalon's tiresome Method parody as the young pimp, and at its best by the reassuring sympathy and strength of Thomas Mitchell's judge."{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1960 |title=Too Young to Love |journal=Monthly Film Bulletin |volume=27 |issue=312 |pages=26}}

In British Sound Films David Quinlan writes: "Modern-day morality play, heavy going."{{Cite book |last=Quinlan |first=David |title=British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 |publisher=B.T. Batsford Ltd. |year=1984 |isbn=0-7134-1874-5 |location=London |pages=390}}

Leslie Halliwell said: "Tepid filming of a popular exploitation play of the fifties, mysteriously made in England."{{Cite book |last=Halliwell |first=Leslie |title=Halliwell's Film Guide |publisher=Paladin |year=1989 |isbn=0-586-08894-6 |edition=7th |location=London |pages=10410}}