Those Were the Days! (1940 film)

Those Were the Days! is a 1940 film comedy starring William Holden and Bonita Granville.^[1]

The cast also featured young Judith Barrett, who made a decision to retire from acting after this.

Plot

On their 35th wedding anniversary, we hear the story of how the couple met in college.

P. J. "Petey" Simmons is a wealthy newcomer, so rival fraternities fight over him. His ego swells as frat boys and comely co-eds alike bide for his time. Petey keeps getting into trouble, too, including an arrest.

At a school dance, Petey's shy roommate has worked up the nerve to invite campus beauty Mirabel Allstairs to be his date. The increasingly arrogant Petey ignores his own date, Martha Scroggs, dancing with other girls instead.

Petey pulls pranks on campus, going so far as to change a professor's clocks to delay an exam. A later act of vandalism leads to yet another arrest. This time the judge threatens to throw the book at Petey, sentencing him to six months in jail. Petey asks for a week's continuance before sentencing, then uses the time to court Martha, having discovered her to be the daughter of the judge.

Once his scheme is revealed, Petey is locked in the town jail by the angry judge. Martha is smitten with him now, however, throws a rock to get arrested so she can end up in the next cell, holding hands with Petey between the bars.

Back in the present, the old judge still can't believe how his daughter and son-in-law ended up together. They also hear that Petey Jr. has just been placed under arrest, which doesn't surprise the judge a bit.

Cast

• William Holden as Petey
• Bonita Granville as Martha
• Judith Barrett as Mirabel
• Ezra Stone as Allie
• Vaughan Glaser as Judge Malachi Scroggs
• Lucien Littlefield as Professor Sillicocks
• Richard Denning as Briggs
• Phillip Terry as Ransom
• Tom Rutherford as Sam Byers
• Aldrich Bowker as Judge Spuire Jennings

References

External links

• Those Were the Days! at IMDB
• Those Were the Days! at the TCM Movie Database