"Young at Heart": Make Your Own Kind of Music

Young at Heart (1954)

Reworking this romantic melodrama as a psychological family ensemble reveals the deeper emotional legacies daughters inherit from their fathers

• Country: United States

• Genre: Musical Drama

• Director: Gordon Douglas

• Starring: Doris Day, Frank Sinatra

DORIS DAY AND FRANK SINATRA IN YOUNG AT HEART (1955), PHOTO COURTESY OF RKO RADIO PICTURES.

Clinical Overview

Laurie, the youngest of three musically inclined daughters of a widowed musician, breaks off a sensible engagement to purse a cynical composer whose talent she believes in.

Diagnosis

Tonal shifts are like grinding gears. The script doesn’t seem to know whether it’s a frothy comedy or a searing melodrama.

Prescription

Laurie and her sisters should each find a man they compare to their father, their ideal. The ways they’re like him is bad for the daughters. The ways they’re unlike him help them grow. By the end they are all changed and have reached a new level of their relationship and musicality.