Father's Son (1941)

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Successful small-town attorney William Emory (John Litel) and his wife Ruth (Frieda Inescort) look forward to the return of their son Bill Jr. (Billy Dawson) from military school -- the elder Emory, in particular, hopes that the school's strict disciplinary regimen has curbed some of his son's wilder, more rambunctious tendencies. Instead, Bill Jr. can't wait to get out of uniform and start playing with his old neighborhood friends, and show them some of what he's learned, in building things, playing sports and, yes, fighting. The younger Emory, who can't seem to hold a thought (or an instruction from his parents) in his head for more than 30 seconds, is soon upsetting his father's life at every turn, while Ruth looks on with increasing concern -- not for her son, but her husband's rigid disapproval, openly expressed, about everything their son is about. Bill Jr. decides to run away from home and nearly falls into the hands of a pair of larcenous tramps, only to be rescued by fisherman Lunk Nelson (Christian Rub). This near-disaster causes the couple to split up, with Ruth taking her son away to live in considerably reduced circumstances. And he benefits for a time from going to work for Lunk, learning responsibility and acquiring some slivers of maturity in the process. But he wants his parents to get back together, and decides that faking his own kidnapping might be just the crisis to do it. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi