The Happy Years (1950)
- Starring:
- Dean Stockwell, Darryl Hickman, (more)
- Director(s):
- William Wellman
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Owen Johnson's novel The Lawrenceville School Stories (compiled from short stories originally published in The Saturday Evening Post) was the basis for The Happy Years. The film is set at an early 20th-century boy's prep school; Dean Stockwell plays an habitual troublemaker sent to this school as a means of straightening him out and making a man of him. At first bullied by the older kids, the pugnacious Stockwell stands his ground until he earns his fellow students' respect. The film adheres strictly to MGM's factory-tested Boys Town formula by having Stockwell cleaning up his act and becoming a worthwhile Lawrenceville student. Watch The Happy Years carefully and you'll spot an unbilled Robert Wagner, in his film debut. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Complete Cast:
- Dean Stockwell - John Humperdink Stover
- Scotty Beckett - Tennessee Shad
- Margalo Gillmore - Mrs. Stover
- Donn Gift - The Big Man
- Jerry Mickelsen - Cheyenne Baxter
- David Bair - White Mountain Canary
- Eddie Le Roy - Poler Beekstein
- Claudia Barrett - Miss Dolly Travers
- Frank Reicher
- Darryl Hickman - Tough McCarthy
- Leon Ames - Samuel H. Stover, Sr.
- Leo G. Carroll - The Old Roman
- Peter Thompson - Sambo
- Alan Dinehart III - Coffee-Colored Angel
- Danny Mummert - Butsey White
- George Chandler - Johnny
- Jacqueline De Wit
- Robert Wagner
- Director(s):
- William Wellman
- Writer(s):
- Harry Ruskin
- Producer(s):
- Carey Wilson
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