marcslope A young Frank Capra slips easily into a milieu you wouldn't expect him to have much feel for--the Jewish Lower East Side--in this early talkie, adapted from a Fannie Hurst novel. Hurst wrote soap operas that validated the feelings of the common woman, but here she's more intent on portraying immigrant Jews, a subculture most of America probably knew and thought little about, with dignity and empathy. And the histrionics are effective. Capra always had a way with actors, and he helps Jean Hersholt, as the stuck-in-his-ways paterfamilias, and Lina Basquette, as a feisty but sympathetic daughter, to their best performances. Ricardo Cortez is more of a natural as the son than you think--he was born Jake Krantz. The early-talkie format, with some scenes with dialogue and others with titles and sound effects, is awkward--if we can hear footsteps and doors slamming, why can't we hear dialogue?--and the not-too-happy ending, with the son punished for his acquisitiveness, is a bit of a downer. But it's loaded with atmosphere, and shows Capra learning his trade quickly.

MartinHafer THE YOUNGER GENERATION is a transitional film. In other words, it was originally a silent film but with the advent of sound in 1927, like many films in production it was held from release and hastily converted to sound. In some cases, such films were crudely overdubbed or all new scenes were added. Now it should be noted that most of these films were NOT 100% sound films, but bits and pieces of sound dialog were added here and there. This is even true to the groundbreaking 'sound' film, THE JAZZ SINGER--as most of the movie actually was still silent. By 1930, such practices were over in the US and films all films were 100% sound (with a few very rare exceptions, such as Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS). Interestingly, this conversion took many more years to take place throughout the rest of the world--with silents still predominating in China and Japan until the late 1930s.This is an interesting film because it's one of the few times in which leading man Ricardo Cortez played a Jewish man. This is interesting because although he had a Hispanic name, this was not his real name--and he was, in fact, Jacob Krantz--Jewish through and through. I guess the studio thought it best, but it seems sad that he publicly pretended to be something he wasn't. But, back in the 1920s and 30s, being a Jew certainly was NOT an asset for a handsome leading man.In addition to Cortez, the other interesting star in the film is Jean Hersholt. While this very prolific character actor may not be a household name, the Oscar's special award for community service was named after him, the Hersholt Humanitarian Award--as Hersholt was the man responsible for the creation of the actor's retirement home and hospital (among other such work).The film is in some ways like a reworking of the recent hit, THE JAZZ SINGER. Like the JAZZ SINGER, this story involves a Jewish family and a son who violates tradition--much to the consternation of his father. In this case, Cortez becomes very successful in business and thinks that this means his family should pretend that their ethnic history does not exist. In other words, Cortez wants to be accepted by the rich folk and to do so, he wants to abandon his heritage--and changes his name from 'Goldfish' to 'Fish' (a common practice among assimilating Jews during this era). While he does bring his family with him to his new 5th Avenue home, he won't allow them to bring in their old friends and insists they act like rich Gentiles. He even drives his sister's boyfriend off as he's no longer 'acceptable'. While this is bad, it's made much worse because in addition to becoming a snob, Cortez really becomes a nasty jerk as well and it's really, really easy to hate him--especially when it comes to his treatment of his sister. Will Cortez see the light? Will his family continue to put up with the prison-like life he's given them? Will they finally just punch him in the schnoz and say "enough's enough"?! Tune in for yourself and see--though I'll let you know that Cortez' treatment of his parents becomes abominable...and rather heartbreaking.Overall, it is very well done and is a wonderful little portrait of an America that no longer exists--the first and second generation Jewish immigrants. Now, much more fully integrated into the society, the Lower East Side is no longer Jewish and the tough life you see them leading is a bygone era. For history and social studies teachers and students, this is an excellent film--and better than its predecessor, THE JAZZ SINGER--even if it is awfully similar.By the way, in many of these partly sound films, you may notice that the silent portions seem to move too fast. That's because silent films had no standard speed at which to run them (which varied from 16-22 frames per second) and sound always ran at 24 frames per second. So, when a silent portion is run through a sound projector, it is slightly sped up--giving it an odd sped-up look. The only times you don't see this is when quality VHS and DVD releases have the speed adjusted to the proper rate.

Michael_Elliott Younger Generation, The (1929)** 1/2 (out of 4)Early Capra melodrama has poor Jewish family taken out of the ghetto by their youngest son (Ricardo Cortez) who strikes it big. He moves his father (Jean Hersholt), mother (Rosa Rosanova) and sister (Lina Basquette) into a large house and expects them to do what he says and stay away from the "filth" they grew up around. Soon the three start to realize that money can't buy happiness but will the son learn this before it's too late? At this point in time Columbia was still a very small studio so they couldn't afford to go all in in terms of sound movies so this is another example of a silent with a few sound segments scattered throughout the film. I've always found this to be incredibly distracting but I think Capra does a great job at when to use the sound and I also think the quality of the recorded words is among the best I've heard from this era. Considering how poor the studio was it's rather shocking that some of the other studios early talkies didn't come off sounding better. With that said, there are some major problems with the film but for the most part it's a nice time filler that fans of the director will want to check out. The biggest problem is that even in 1929 this material was way too predictable. There's really not a single thing that happens in the film that you won't see coming from a mile away. The format pretty much follows every morality film that came before it and I just wish at some point Capra would have shaken things up just to keep us off guard or at least in some drama. It should come as no shock that Capra does a great job with what's here and manages to keep the film moving quite fast and he keeps it as entertaining as the screenplay will allow. The cast also keeps things moving nicely with their fine performances. Cortez would play this type of role countless times in his career and he always managed to do good with it. Hersholt clearly steals the film as the tortured father. In the end, this isn't the greatest film ever made but I think Capra did the most he could considering what he had to work with. I think those who like to search out these early talkies will find the quality here to be above average and will make one wonder why some of the bigger studios didn't have their stuff sounding as good.

jraskin-1 I just had the opportunity to see this film on our most valuable classic film resource, TCM. It was good to see, purely for historic purposes regarding Frank Capra's career. One good thing about the silent parts is that if you had taped or Tivo'd the film, you can scan the silent scenes at double speed and still follow the story. One curious thing (stemming from the original story) stood out for me though; if I wanted to change my name from Goldfish to a classier name, I would surely change it to Gold instead of Fish! After all, Samuel Goldfish changed his name to Goldwyn. I say, when in doubt, keep the Gold and lose the Fish!