The Happy Years

The Happy Years

NR 1950 · 110 min · ★ 7.5 · Comedy, Romance

Based on a collection of stories with the focus on young John Humperkink "Dink" Stover, a student at the Lawrenceville Prepatory School, in 1896, whose family, in Eastcester, New York, have just about given up on his education because he is an incorrigible student. He gets into one situation after another and incurs the dislike of his classmates, who think he is cowardly but he changes their opinion when he challenges several of them to a fight. When he returns home for the summer, he meets Miss Dolly Travers and increases his 'hatred of women' because she does not accept his schoolboy pranks. Back at school, in the fall, he is more difficult than ever until his philosophy is changed by a teacher.

Directed by William A. Wellman · Written by Harry Ruskin

Your Rating

Cast

Dean Stockwell John Humperdink 'Dink' Stover
Darryl Hickman George 'Tough' McCarty
Scotty Beckett 'Tennessee' Shad
Leon Ames Sr. Samuel H. Stover
Margalo Gillmore Maude Stover
Leo G. Carroll Mr. Hopkins
Donn Gift Joshua Montgomery Smead
Danny Mummert "Butsey" White
Elinor Donahue Connie Brown
George Chandler Johnny
Irving Bacon Mr. Conover
Arthur Space Al

Make it a double feature

3h 48m together

The Happy Years

Westward the Women

Both from William A. Wellman.

More from William A. WellmanSee all →

The Ox-Bow Incident

The Ox-Bow Incident · 1943

The Ox-Bow Incident

A posse discovers a trio of men they suspect of murder and cow theft and are split between handing them over to the law or lynching them on the spot.

A Star Is Born

A Star Is Born · 2018

MovieMusicDrama

Seasoned musician Jackson Maine discovers — and falls in love with — struggling artist Ally. She has just about given up on her dream to make it big as a singer — until Jack coaxes her into the spotlight. But even as Ally's career takes off, the personal side of their relationship is breaking down, as Jack fights an ongoing battle with his own internal demons.

The Public Enemy

The Public Enemy · 1931

The Public Enemy

MovieCrimeDrama

Two young Chicago hoodlums, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, rise up from their poverty-stricken slum life to become petty thieves, bootleggers and cold-blooded killers. But with street notoriety and newfound wealth, the duo feels the heat from the cops and rival gangsters both. Despite his ruthless criminal reputation, Tom tries to remain connected to his family, however, gang warfare and the need for revenge eventually pull him away.

Wings

MovieDramaAction

Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.

A Star Is Born

A Star Is Born · 1937

MovieDramaRomance

Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of her idol Norman Maine, is sent for a screen test, and before long attains stardom as newly minted Vicki Lester. She and Norman marry, though his career soon dwindles to nothing due to his chronic alcoholism.

A Star Is Born

A Star Is Born · 1954

MovieDramaMusic

A movie star helps a young singer-actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.

Heroes for Sale

Heroes for Sale · 1933

Heroes for Sale

World War I veteran Tom Holmes is marked by the unbearable suffering caused by his battle wounds. Over the years, he comes to experience both the pain of misfortune and a love for other human beings.

Beau Geste

Beau Geste · 1939

MovieAdventureDrama

Brothers Beau, John and Digby Geste join the Foreign Legion, where they fall under the rule of tyrannical Sergeant Markoff. Beau and John are assigned to Fort Zinderneuf, where Markoff tries to break their spirit, aware of a dark family secret concerning a fabulous jewel one of them carries. As tensions rise, Arabs attack the fort and rivalries must be thrown aside in a desperate battle for life.

Yellow Sky

Yellow Sky · 1948

In 1867, a gang robs a bank and flees into the desert. Out of water, the outlaws encounter a ghost town called Yellow Sky and its only residents, a hostile young woman and her grandfather.

Westward the Women

Westward the Women · 1951

Westward the Women

MovieWesternDrama

There's a deficit of good, honest women in the West, and Roy Whitman wants to change that. His solution is to bring a caravan of over 100 mail-order brides from Chicago to California. It will be a long, difficult and dangerous journey for the women. So Whitman hires hardened, cynical Buck Wyatt to be their guide across the inhospitable frontier. But as disaster strikes on the trail, Buck just might discover that these women are stronger than he thinks.

Tarzan Escapes

Tarzan Escapes · 1936

MovieActionAdventure

White hunter Captain Fry tries to take Tarzan back to civilization, caged for public display. He arrives in the jungle with Jane's cousins, Eric and Rita, who want Jane's help in claiming a fortune left her.

Battleground

Battleground · 1949

MovieActionDrama

Members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division are fighting for their country amidst the rugged terrain of Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944. Holley and his American compatriots have already seen one of their own, Roderigues, perish under enemy fire. The men try to rebuff another series of Nazi attacks, but what they really need is a change in the weather. Without clear skies, they'll never get the air support they need.

Magic Town

Magic Town · 1947

MovieComedyRomance

Rip Smith's opinion-poll business is a failure...until he discovers that the small town of Grandview is statistically identical to the entire country. He and his assistants go there to run polls cheaply and easily, in total secrecy (it would be fatal to let the townsfolk get self-conscious). And of course, civic crusader Mary Peterman must be kept from changing things too much. But romantic involvement with Mary complicates life for Rip; then suddenly everything changes.

Story of G.I. Joe

Story of G.I. Joe · 1945

Story of G.I. Joe

War correspondent Ernie Pyle joins Company C, 18th Infantry as this American army unit fights its way across North Africa in World War II. He comes to know the soldiers and finds much human interest material for his readers back in the States. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2000.

Call of the Wild

Call of the Wild · 1935

Call of the Wild

MovieAdventureWestern

Jack Thornton has trouble winning enough at cards for the stake he needs to get to the Alaska gold fields. His luck changes when he pays $250 for Buck, a sled dog that is part wolf to keep him from being shot by an arrogant Englishman also headed for the Yukon. En route to the Yukon with Shorty Houlihan -- who spent time in jail for opening someone else's letter with a map of where gold is to be found -- Jack rescues a woman whose husband was the addressee of that letter. Buck helps Jack win a $1,000 bet to get the supplies he needs. And when Jack and Claire Blake pet Buck one night, fingers touch.

The Great Man's Lady

The Great Man's Lady · 1941

The Great Man's Lady

MovieWesternDrama

In Hoyt City, a statue of founder Ethan Hoyt is dedicated, and 100 year old Hannah Sempler Hoyt (who lives in the last residence among skyscrapers) is at last persuaded to tell her story to a 'girl biographer'. Flashback: in 1848, teenage Hannah meets and flirts with pioneer Ethan; on a sudden impulse, they elope. We follow their struggle to found a city in the wilderness, hampered by the Gold Rush, star-crossed love, peril, and heartbreak. The star "ages" 80 years.

More Like This

Atonement

Atonement · 2007

MovieDramaRomance

A young girl irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.

Pride & Prejudice

Pride & Prejudice · 2005

Pride & Prejudice

MovieDramaRomance

A story of love and life among the landed English gentry during the Georgian era. Mr. Bennet is a gentleman living in Hertfordshire with his overbearing wife and five daughters, but if he dies their house will be inherited by a distant cousin whom they have never met, so the family's future happiness and security is dependent on the daughters making good marriages.

Les Misérables

Les Misérables · 1998

Les Misérables

MovieCrimeDrama

In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a relentless policeman named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives, and soon Valjean finds himself in the midst of the student revolutions in France.

Candy

MovieDramaRomance

A poet falls in love with an art student, who gravitates to his bohemian lifestyle — and his love of heroin. Hooked as much on one another as they are on the drug, their relationship alternates between states of oblivion, self-destruction, and despair.

The Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm · 2005

The Brothers Grimm

MovieAdventureFantasy

Folklore collectors and con artists, Jake and Will Grimm, travel from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures and performing exorcisms. However, they are put to the test when they encounter a real magical curse in a haunted forest with real magical beings, requiring genuine courage.

Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road · 2008

Revolutionary Road

MovieDramaRomance

A young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s struggle to come to terms with their personal problems while trying to raise their two children. Based on a novel by Richard Yates.

Odette Toulemonde

Odette Toulemonde · 2007

Odette Toulemonde

MovieComedyDrama

Objectively, Odette Toulemonde has nothing to be happy about, but is. Balthazar Balsan has everything to be happy about, but isn’t. Odette, awkwardly forty, with a delightful hairdresser son and a daughter bogged down in adolescence, spends her days behind the cosmetic’s counter in a department store and her nights sewing feathers on costumes for Parisian variety shows. She dreams of thanking Balthazar Balsan, her favorite author, to whom – she believes – she owes her optimism. The rich and charming Parisian writer then turns up in her life in an unexpected way.

Under Capricorn

Under Capricorn · 1949

Under Capricorn

MovieDramaRomance

A British ex-convict in colonial Australia and his fragile wife, haunted by the past crime that binds them, struggle to rebuild their lives when a young newcomer stirs long-buried passions and secrets.

Legends of the Fall

Legends of the Fall · 1994

Legends of the Fall

MovieDramaWestern

In early 20th-century Montana, Col. William Ludlow lives on a ranch in the wilderness with his sons, Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. Eventually, the unconventional but close-knit family are bound by loyalty, tested by war, and torn apart by love, as told over the course of several decades in this epic saga.

Read It and Weep

Read It and Weep · 2006

Read It and Weep

MovieFamilyComedy

A young girl turns into an A-List celebrity over night when her private journal is accidently published and becomes a best-seller.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie · 2017

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

MovieFamilyComedy

Based on the bestselling book series, this outrageous comedy tells the story of George and Harold, two overly imaginative pranksters who hypnotize their principal into thinking he’s an enthusiastic, yet dimwitted, superhero named Captain Underpants.

Here the Whole Time

Here the Whole Time · 2026

Here the Whole Time

MovieComedyRomance

An insecure teenager's vacation plans are ruined by an unexpected visitor: his neighbor and school crush who will spend two weeks sleeping at his house. The days that promised peace, tranquility and epic series marathons end up bringing a whirlwind of feelings and unresolved issues.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind · 2002

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

MovieComedyCrime

Television made him famous, but his biggest hits happened off screen. Television producer by day, CIA assassin by night, Chuck Barris was recruited by the CIA at the height of his TV career and trained to become a covert operative. Or so Barris said.

A Boy and His Dog

A Boy and His Dog · 1975

A Boy and His Dog

MovieDramaScience Fiction

Set in the year 2024 in post-apocalyptic America, 18-year old Vic and his telepathic dog, Blood, are scavengers in the desolate wilderness ravaged by World War IV, where survivors must battle for food and shelter in the desert-like wasteland. Vic and Blood eke out a meager existence, foraging for food and fighting gangs of cutthroats.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter