ksf-2 Pretty fun story, but I wasn't really sure what the plot of the story was for most of the film; Margie (Marian Marsh) helps her sister (Anita Page) get married off; then we flash back to a hot city street, with Margie, her boyfriend Jimmie (Regis Toomey) and the neighbors squawking about how hot and miserable they are; it's 1929, everyone is suffering during the depression. Margie is working to get by , but we see everyone around them is either very rich and getting richer, or very poor and getting poorer (just like today. not much has changed.) We spend an awful lot of time talking about how hard it is to get by these days. I guess its a set up for things to come. She almost gets her big break modeling a fur in her salon, where she meets wealthy Mr. Harding (Warren William). Where were we? Oh yeah, the sister Sophie gets walloped by the husband, and wants a divorce. Margie runs all over town asking everyone for a loan for the divorce lawyer. She seems to be more concerned about getting the money than her sister is. Bad stuff happens. Good stuff happens. Strong, clever ending, which kind of redeems the film. It's kind of a "week in the life of Margie" story. Directed by Archie Mayo, who directed comedies (A Night in Casablanca) and serious films (Petrified Forest). He had started in 1917, pretty near the beginning of the film industry. Story by husband and wife team Frank Dazey and Agnes Johnston. Looks like they wrote some of the later adventures of Andy Hardy.

kidboots Marian Marsh should have had a bigger career - she had a doll-like prettiness, was sweet and when the role called for it (ie "Five Star Final" (1931)) a good little actress. "Under 18" had been given a lot of publicity but failed dismally at the box office and when Marian rebelled, Warners unceremoniously dumped her. She then started the uncertain path of freelancing. It"s not hard to understand why the public stayed away. The theme was typical of a lot of movies at the time - the plight of the poor working girl, faced with mountainous problems and no money - what's a girl to do? The publicity may have talked this up, the title "Under 18" was lurid but a tease and had nothing to do with the plot. Were Warners really going to let their sweet little ingenue, Marian Marsh, find the money she needs (for her sister's divorce) "the easiest way" - not on your life!!! The movie promised much but didn't deliver, anyway Constance Bennett had the market cornered on these types of movies - at least she really sinned before she saw the light!!!Margie Evans (Marian Marsh) hopes, some day, to find the same happiness as her sister, Sophie (Anita Page) who is about to marry her dream man Alf (Norman Foster). A few years down the track, Alf is a loafer who is allergic to work and if ever a wife could drive her husband around the bend it is Sophie, who has turned into a nagging drudge. They turn up at Margie and her mother's flat and within a few days have turned Margie from a contented, soon to be married (to Jimmie) starry eyed girl to one who desperately wants to escape the drudgery of tenement life. (A weird thing - when Sophie arrives at the flat she is carrying a baby in her arms but the next morning the baby has turned into a toddler!!!)When all the girls are at lunch, Margie, who is a seamstress, is asked to model a fur coat for playboy about town, Raymond Harding (Warren William makes the most of a supporting role) and his latest flame (Claire Dodd). Nothing comes of it but when Sophie announces she is fed up with Alf and wants a divorce, Margie remembers Raymmond's kindness (he sent her mother some flowers) and goes to him for a loan (the lawyer has asked for a $200 fee). She goes to his penthouse - he happens to be throwing a pool party and after a few "suggestive" scenes including bathing suits and peignoirs, Jimmie (Regis Toomey) bursts in. He is angry and goes to give Margie a good slap, then decides to hit Raymond instead. Raymond falls to the ground and suddenly it looks as though Jimmie is facing a murder charge!!The movie juggles it's moods between high drama and hijinks. For a movie made before the code it did not deliver on it's promises. For every scene of Marsh in a moral conflict, the next shows her snuggling contentedly up to Jimmie in the front seat of his bread van, whistling "Happy Days Are Here Again". Talking pictures showed up Page's limitations as an actress. The hysteria and dramatics that worked so well and got her noticed in "Our Dancing Daughters" and "Our Modern Maidens", didn't seem to work in "Under Eighteen". I also recognised beautiful, but uncredited Lillian Bond as a disheveled girl in an elevator.Recommended.

calvinnme Though it only has one star usually associated with Warner Brothers in the early 1930's - Warren William - and even he has a supporting role in relation to the now forgotten Regis Toomey, this film is just bursting with the attitude of precode Warner Brothers.It's subject is very definitely the depression and specifically how fortunes quickly changed for families when the male head of the household died. The beginning of the film is full of hope as the movie opens on the wedding day of Sophie (Anita Page), oldest daughter in the Evans family. However, three still-shots later - Dad's grave stone reading 1872-1928, a room for rent sign, and a pawn broker's store sign, and the audience is standing in the middle of a crowded tenement neighborhood in New York City in 1931. Youngest daughter Margie is working as a seamstress, living in a complete dump with her mother, and her boyfriend is making annoying happy talk about how their next big break is just around the corner. What is just around the corner is that sister Sophie, her husband Alf (Norman Foster), and their baby are moving into Margie and Mom's cramped quarters because they have just lost everything. Worse, Alf doesn't think that getting a regular job is a priority.The daring subject that is insinuated here but never mentioned specifically is abortion. After Alf hits Sophie when she objects to him taking what little money they have and betting on himself in a billiards tournament, she reveals to Margie that she wants a divorce from loafer Alf, and furthermore she's pregnant again. Margie talks about taking her to someone the other girls have talked about, and you do see her talking to a lawyer next, but you've got to wonder what else happened since that baby is never mentioned again.Unfortunately the girls are shocked to find out from the lawyer that a divorce costs 200 dollars, which they don't have. Margie has two places she can go for the money - her boyfriend, who has 800 dollars saved to start his own business but is dead-set against divorce under any circumstances, much more so against financing one. She could also go to playboy millionaire Raymond Harding (Warren William) who took a liking to Margie when he saw her stand in as a model at the fashionable dress shop where she works. He would certainly give her the money, but what will she have to do in return? This film is headed to a dark depression precode outcome when several credible good things happen and one rather outlandish thing happens that results in a rather preposterous happy ending. It's sad to think that Marian Marsh's career never really went anywhere. I've found her a delight in the three films in which I've seen her - Svengali, Beauty and the Boss, and this one. I'd recommend it to anybody who likes the precodes.

HarlowMGM Marian Marsh was a creamy complexion blonde ingénue best remembered for playing Trilby opposite John Barrymore's SVENGALI in 1930. Warner Bros. briefly considered her star material in the early 1930's, needlessly to say this gentle starlet did not last long on the mean streets of Warners although she had a surprisingly long career as a B movie lead that lasted into the early 1940's. She was at the height of her fame in 1931 when Warners starred her in UNDER EIGHTEEN, a drama about a young girl who considers the primrose path. The movie is remarkably tame for a pre-code with Miss Marsh's virtue never really compromised or in doubt. Miss Marsh is a pleasant performer but it's easy to see how audiences of the era were underwhelmed by her compared to so many charismatic actresses starring at the time. She's also overshadowed here in the acting department at least by her MGM contemporary, lovely Anita Page, borrowed from Metro to play the older (age 21!) sister who learns marriage ain't quite all wedding cake especially when you have a husband who won't work and is not above smacking you one. (The movies' most shocking scene is the suggestion that Anita is considering having an abortion rather than have another child for a man who won't support the first one. It's never stated outright but clearly suggested. "I know where to go from girls at work for things like that," Marian volunteers, but after teasing us with Marian's hand scanning down on the list of business offices on a building directory wall with "doctor" among them, she stops at "attorney", thus showing us she meant she would help her get representation for the divorce.) It's Anita's dilemma in fact that causes Marion to wonder if does any good to be a good girl and Marian's desperation to get the $200 (rather pricey for the era) needed for Anita to obtain a divorce that causes her to turn to presumably big bad wolf Warren William. There's a remarkable unintentionally comic sequence when maid Marian goes up to Billy boy's art deco penthouse where a pool party with a bunch of fairly sauced party goers is in full swing (the depravity!), playboy Warren informs her this is just a typical night with his friends and instructs his butler to get the new chick a swimsuit, leading Marian to a room well stocked with swimwear and robes for visiting females. But wait, Marian's virtuous boyfriend, milkman Regis Toomey is on the way to rescue his girl from this den of iniquity and gives WW a rather mild punch that sends the maligned lech to death's door but since he really isn't a bad egg he survives (old Reg turns out was no dangerous pug, Warren merely had eaten some bad shrimp!!) and so our lovebirds are happily reunited and we also learn sister Anita off-camera has been happily reunited with hubby Norman Foster who has won $1,000 in a pool tournament (and another $500 besides for betting on himself!!) Of course, the fact that bro in law had earlier in the film LOST his pool hall and savings in an earlier bit of gambling is conveniently forgotten.The cast is pretty good here but the billing on the film is curiously strange. J. Farrell MacDonald as the girls' father keels over minutes into the film but is billed high whereas mom Emma Dunn has quite a large part but isn't billed at all. Similarly, Joyce Compton is billed quite high for a part so small I didn't notice she was in the picture on first viewing.The picture may not be for the history books, but the star starlets sure were survivors. Marian Marsh passed away last month, November 2006, at age 93, while Anita Page is still with us at age 96.