Accent on Youth (film)


Accent on Youth is a 1935 American comedy film directed by Wesley Ruggles and written by Herbert Fields and Claude Binyon based on the play of the same name written by Samson Raphaelson. The film stars Sylvia Sidney, Herbert Marshall, Phillip Reed, Holmes Herbert, Catherine Doucet and Astrid Allwyn. The film was released on August 23, 1935, by Paramount Pictures.

Cast

Andre Sennwald of The New York Times said, "Samson Raphaelson's pleasant little stage comedy of middle-aged love spends a good deal of its time being a garrulous bore in its motion picture version at the Paramount Theatre. Never notable for any startling excesses of invention, it slows down to a succession of dialogues as it reaches the screen, and is content to be a faithful photographic study of its original. It is still a mild delight, though, to contemplate the fresh and amusing point of view which is the basis of Accent on Youth. Mr. Raphaelson has written a comedy which might serve as a sort of amorous supplement to Walter Pitkin's hymn of encouragement to the middle-aged. He performs a definite service for the emotional bankrupt, even if he does not call it "Love Begins at Fifty."
Writing for The Spectator in 1935, Graham Greene described the film as a "dreary comedy", and characterized the acting of Marshall as the "usual canine performance of dumb suffering". Greene noted that there was one good scene toward the end of the film, but advised readers not to wait for it.