Our Hearts Were Growing Up
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
William D. Russell
Gail Russell
Diana Lynn
Brian Donlevy
Billy De Wolfe
James Brown
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
The girls of Lowell College in Boston take a bus to a Boston theater for a night out. During the play, seventeen-year-old Cornelia Otis Skinner sneaks out to meet her Princeton boyfriend, Avery Moore, a football player. Despite her friend Emily Kimbrough's warnings to be back before the play ends, Cornelia and Avery's cab arrives too late, and they are caught kissing by Miss Dill, Lowell's martinet dean. When actress Suzanne Carter, who appeared in the play, sees Avery outside the theater, she insists that he take her out for a drink, and Emily stays behind to eavesdrop. She learns that Suzanne is planning a party for Avery after the Princeton-Harvard game, and Avery insists that Cornelia and Emily and her boyfriend, Dr. Tom Newhall, also be invited. When Tom is late meeting the girls at Penn Station, they ask bootlegger Tony Minnetti to pose as Emily's "Uncle Eddie" so that Miss Dill will think they have a chaperone. Tony and his partner, Peanuts Schultz, use the girls to get two suitcases of champagne past federal agents. Once they arrive in Princeton, however, they are separated, and the girls find themselves with "Uncle Eddie's" bootlegged liquor. In a panic, Emily pours the liquor down the drain. Meanwhile, Suzanne's mother, Mrs. Southworth, waits for Tony to deliver the champagne for Suzanne's party. Princeton loses the game, and at the post-game party, to impress Avery and annoy Suzanne, Cornelia boasts that she can provide champagne for Suzanne's dance, unaware that Emily has thrown it away. The girls fill the bottles with a drugstore tonic, but after the first toast, Tony announces that they have been drinking poisonous wood alcohol. Tom prescribes an antidote of vinegar, eggs and milk, and when Suzanne threatens to call the police on Tony, Cornelia and Emily confess that they filled the bottles with tonic. Furious at the humiliation, Tom and Avery break up with the girls, and Avery begins dating Suzanne. To win Avery back, Cornelia rents a Greenwich Village an artist's flat with Emily in the hopes of becoming an actress over her school break. Roland Du Frere, a hungry Bohemian who is prone to histrionics, invites the girls to meet a brilliant theatrical producer named Bubchenko, and promises Cornelia a role in his new play. After an expensive meal, the men leave the girls with the check. Avery, meanwhile, is being coached by Suzanne to appear in the Princeton Triangle variety show. Tony uses his influence to get Cornelia one line in a play, then hosts a party for her on opening night. Schultz shanghais the boys into coming to the party, but they escape. Suzanne, angry for being stood up by Avery, calls the police on Tony, and the boys go to the girls' rescue. When the police raid Tony's flat for serving liquor to minors, Tom and Avery carry the girls out on a stretcher. Later, at the train station, Cornelia and Emily kiss their boyfriends goodbye, and Tony is asked by a college girl to be her chaperone.
Director
William D. Russell
Cast
Gail Russell
Diana Lynn
Brian Donlevy
Billy De Wolfe
James Brown
Bill Edwards
William Demarest
Sharon Douglas
Mary Hatcher
Sara Haden
Mikhail Rasumny
Isabel Randolph
Frank Faylen
Virginia Farmer
Ann Doran
Douglas Walton
Nell Craig
Charles Williams
Ed Randolph
John "skins" Miller
Matt Mchugh
William Meader
Jack Overman
Garry Owen
Byron [s.] Barr
Bea Allen
Eddie Carnegie
Ray Turner
Audrey Young
Sam Ash
Joseph J. Greene
Walter Fenner
Joel Mcginnis
Roland Dupree
Charles Saggau
John Indrisano
Pat Phelan
Albert Ruiz
Cy Ring
Frances Raymond
Edgar Norton
Ralph Brooke
John James
Georges Renavent
Charles Moore
Mona Freeman
Walter Wilson
Walter Baldwin
Hobart Cavanaugh
Kernan Cripps
Gladys Gale
Al Hill
Guy Zanette
Theodore Rand
Sam Finn
Benny Burt
Sam Bagley
Giorgio Restivo
Henry Russell
John Jennings
Robert E. Homans
Arthur Loft
Eddie Kane
James Millican
Pierre Watkin
Crane Whitley
Brick Sullivan
Jack Lindquist
Dorothy Jean Reisner
Marianne Stewart
Gwen Martin
Mary Kay Jones
Ada Ruth Butcher
Patricia Murphy
Valmere Barman
Carol Deere
Margaret Field
Olive Mccabe
Victor Travers
Art Thompson
Harry Adams
Crew
Anne Bauchens
Sam Comer
John N. Cope
Daniel Dare
Mary Kay Dodson
Haldane Douglas
Hans Dreier
Farciot Edouart
Melvin Frank
Loyal Griggs
Doane Harrison
Gordon Jennings
Don Johnson
Paul Lerpae
Roy Meadows
Norman Panama
Stuart Thompson
Frank Waldman
Wally Westmore
Lothrop Worth
Victor Young
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The written foreword to the film states: "If this story were true (which it isn't)-And these events were real (which they aren't)-It would have all started back in those early twenties-when stocks were up-skirts were down and a girl's best friend was her mother's bootlegger." This film was a sequel to the 1944 Paramount film Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (see below), and follows the youthful lives of actress Cornelia Otis Skinner and writer Emily Kimbrough. The 1944 film was based on Skinner and Kimbrough's autobiographical book of the same title. Gail Russell, Diana Lynn, James Brown and Bill Edwards recreated their roles from the earlier film. According to a January 25, 1945 Hollywood Reporter news item, Skinner and Kimbrough took legal action against Paramount to prevent a sequel. A judge ruled in favor of the studio. A pre-production news item lists Jean Heather, Nancy Porter, Gloria Saunders and Kay Scott in the cast, but their participation in the released film has not been confirmed.
