The Happy Years | |
---|---|
Directed by | William Wellman |
Written by | Harry Ruskin |
Based on | The Varmint: A Lawrenceville Story by
|
Produced by | Carey Wilson |
Starring | Dean Stockwell Darryl Hickman Scotty Beckett Leon Ames Margalo Gillmore |
Cinematography | Paul C. Vogel |
Edited by | John Dunning |
Music by | Leigh Harline |
Color process | Technicolor |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
|
Running time | 109-110 mins |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,393,000 [1] |
Box office | $855,000 [1] |
The Happy Years is a 1950 film based on the 1910 novel The Varmint by Owen Johnson. It concerns the adventures of Dink Stover, a boy attending the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. Robert Wagner made his film debut in a small, uncredited role as Adams, the catcher for Cleve House.
Expelled from other preparatory schools, most recently after causing a campus explosion, young John Humperdink Stover is given one last chance by his father to find maturity and discipline along with a proper education. On the way to a new academy, Stover promptly disrupts the trip of a fellow carriage passenger, Mr. Hopkins, by causing the horse to break into a gallop. He is unaware that Hopkins is the Latin teacher and house-master at his school.
Promptly given the nickname "Dink," he becomes acquainted with other students like "Tough" McCarty and "Tennessee" Shad and immediately starts getting into fights. The rivalry spills onto the football field and also includes elaborate pranks played on a girl, Connie Brown, during the summer break. On the verge of being kicked out of yet another school, Dink comes to his senses just in time, making his father proud at last.
According to MGM records, the movie earned $680,000 in the US and Canada and $175,000 elsewhere, making a loss of $1,096,000 for the studio. [1]
The Champ is a 1931 American pre-Code film starring Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper and directed by King Vidor from a screenplay by Frances Marion, Leonard Praskins and Wanda Tuchock. The picture tells the story of a washed-up alcoholic boxer (Beery) attempting to put his life back together for the sake of his young son (Cooper).
What's Opera, Doc? is a 1957 American Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The short was released on July 6, 1957, and stars Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.
Owen McMahon Johnson was an American writer best remembered for his stories and novels cataloguing the educational and personal growth of the fictional character Dink Stover. The "Lawrenceville Stories", set in the well-known prep school, invite comparison with Kipling's Stalky & Co. A 1950 film, The Happy Years, and a 1987 PBS mini-series, The Lawrenceville Stories, were based on them.
Scott Hastings Beckett was an American actor. He began his career as a child actor in the Our Gang shorts and later costarred on Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.
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Doug's 1st Movie is a 1999 American animated comedy film based on the Disney-produced episodes of the Nickelodeon television series Doug. The film was directed by Maurice Joyce, and stars the regular television cast of Tom McHugh, Fred Newman, Chris Phillips, Constance Shulman, Frank Welker, Alice Playten, Guy Hadley, and Doris Belack. Produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and Jumbo Pictures with animation provided by Plus One Animation, it was released by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution under its Walt Disney Pictures label on March 26, 1999. The film serves as a finale for the Doug TV show. An accompanying Mickey Mouse Works short "Donald's Dynamite: Opera Box" was released with the film.
Coneheads is a 1993 American science-fiction comedy film from Paramount Pictures, produced by Lorne Michaels, directed by Steve Barron, and starring Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin and Michelle Burke. The film is based on the NBC Saturday Night Live comedy sketches about aliens stranded on Earth, who have Anglicized their Remulakian surname to "Conehead". Michelle Burke took over the role played by Laraine Newman on SNL. The film also features roles and cameos by actors and comedians from SNL and other television series of the time.
Troy Donahue was an American film and television actor, best known for his role as Johnny Hunter in the film A Summer Place. He was a popular sex symbol in the 1950s and 1960s.
Norman Alden was an American character actor who performed in television programs and motion pictures. He first appeared on television on The 20th Century Fox Hour in 1957. He provided the voice of Kay in The Sword in the Stone (1963), and had a notable role in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. His acting career began in 1957 and lasted nearly 50 years. He is also known for playing Kranix and Arblus in The Transformers: The Movie (1986). He retired from acting in 2006. He died on July 27, 2012, at the age of 87.
Undercurrent is a 1946 American film noir drama directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, and Robert Mitchum. The screenplay was written by Edward Chodorov, based on the story "You Were There'" by Thelma Strabel, and allegedly contained uncredited contributions from Marguerite Roberts.
The Breaking Point is a 1950 American film noir crime drama directed by Michael Curtiz and the second film adaptation of the 1937 Ernest Hemingway novel To Have and Have Not. It stars John Garfield, in his penultimate film role, and Patricia Neal. Subsequently blacklisted by HUAC, Garfield's very last film was the self-produced and self-financed, He Ran All the Way.
No Man of Her Own is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic comedy-drama film starring Clark Gable and Carole Lombard as a married couple in their only film together, several years before their own legendary marriage in real life. The film was directed by Wesley Ruggles, and originated as an adaptation of No Bed of Her Own, a 1931 novel by Val Lewton, but ended up based more on a story by Benjamin Glazer and Edmund Goulding, although it retained the title from Lewton's novel. It is not related to the 1950 film of the same name.
Parrish is a 1961 American drama film made by Warner Bros. It was written, produced and directed by Delmer Daves, based on Mildred Savage's 1958 novel of the same name. The music score was by Max Steiner, the Technicolor cinematography by Harry Stradling Sr., the art direction by Leo K. Kuter and the costume design by Howard Shoup. The film stars Troy Donahue, Claudette Colbert, Karl Malden, Dean Jagger, Connie Stevens, Diane McBain, Sharon Hugueny, Sylvia Miles, Madeleine Sherwood and Hayden Rorke.
Kill the Umpire is a 1950 baseball comedy film starring William Bendix and Una Merkel, directed by Lloyd Bacon and written by Frank Tashlin.
San Quentin is a 1937 Warner Bros. drama film directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, and Ann Sheridan. It was shot on location at San Quentin State Prison.
Palm Springs Weekend is a 1963 Warner Bros. bedroom comedy film directed by Norman Taurog. It has elements of the beach party genre and has been called "a sort of Westernized version of Where the Boys Are" by Billboard magazine. It stars Troy Donahue, Stefanie Powers, Robert Conrad, Ty Hardin, and Connie Stevens.
Stover at Yale, by Owen Johnson is a novel describing undergraduate life at Yale at the turn of the 20th century. The book was described by F. Scott Fitzgerald as the "textbook" of his generation. Stover at Yale recounts Dink Stover's navigation through the social structure at Yale and his struggles with social pressure.
Our Miss Brooks is a 1956 American comedy film starring Eve Arden, Gale Gordon, Don Porter and Robert Rockwell, based on the radio and TV sitcom hit on CBS of the same name. Directed by Al Lewis, who was the chief writer for the radio and TV editions, and written by both him and Joseph Quillan, the film disregarded the past four years of television and started with a new storyline. It was distributed by Warner Brothers.
Susan Slade is a 1961 American Technicolor drama film directed by Delmer Daves and starring Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Dorothy McGuire and Lloyd Nolan. Based upon the 1961 novel The Sin of Susan Slade by Doris Hume, concerns a well-to-do teenage girl who secretly has a baby out of wedlock. With cinematography by Lucien Ballard, the film was released by Warner Bros.
The Varmint is a lost 1917 American comedy silent film directed by William Desmond Taylor, written by Gardner Hunting and Owen Johnson, and starring Jack Pickford, Louise Huff, Theodore Roberts, Henry Malvern, Ben Suslow and Milton Schumann. It was released on August 5, 1917, by Paramount Pictures.