Coming out the same year as the much more scandalous (and colorful) "A Summer Place", this adoption of a successful Broadway play takes a while to build up. It features sincere performances by Brandon DeWilde and Carol Lynley as basically nice teenagers who sleep together and decide to have the big "A". That word isn't even uttered in the 90 minutes running time, only insinuated when DeWilde asks friend Warren Berlinger the name of a doctor who perform such procedures. There's a lot of discussion over the moral responsibility and the fact that they are too young, and when they do try to get a marriage license, they are treated with disrespect not only by the license bureau employees but adults waiting to get licenses as well.
Veteran actors MacDonald Carey and Marsha Hunt play DeWilde's parents, struggling with their own days of their lives and an engaged daughter who fortunately doesn't go through the same ordeal. It's like "Father of the Bride" finds out that he's going to be a grandfather from one of the two sons, but here, when he tries to get help from his parents, he's treated like a child and not taken seriously.
It's obvious in the late 1950's that even with the code still in effect, Hollywood was trying to get past it in dealing with certain themes that society was dealing with and couldn't properly discuss without facing the wrath by the Catholic legion of decency. This film is obviously well-intentioned, but shows that the generation gap was really responsible for creating more problems than teams were finding as they grew up both physically and emotionally. This is not exploitive like other teen dramas, but doesn't have the lushness of the more popular and well remembered Sandra Dee / Troy Donahue film.
Veteran actors MacDonald Carey and Marsha Hunt play DeWilde's parents, struggling with their own days of their lives and an engaged daughter who fortunately doesn't go through the same ordeal. It's like "Father of the Bride" finds out that he's going to be a grandfather from one of the two sons, but here, when he tries to get help from his parents, he's treated like a child and not taken seriously.
It's obvious in the late 1950's that even with the code still in effect, Hollywood was trying to get past it in dealing with certain themes that society was dealing with and couldn't properly discuss without facing the wrath by the Catholic legion of decency. This film is obviously well-intentioned, but shows that the generation gap was really responsible for creating more problems than teams were finding as they grew up both physically and emotionally. This is not exploitive like other teen dramas, but doesn't have the lushness of the more popular and well remembered Sandra Dee / Troy Donahue film.