The chronology is all wrong. The boy was born 20 years ago? Can't be. Jimmy Cagney is too old to have been in college 20 years earlier. Also, the boy was his mother's first-born. How could he be only 20 if the son-in-law, the hardware clerk, is in his middle-to-late 20s? The woman the hardware clerk is supposed to be married to would have to be younger than 20. I could believe 30 years, not 20.
shareYou can attend college at any age (over high school age unless you're an advanced-placed supergenius), and actors often play characters who're older or younger than their actual ages.
shareCagney was fifty-six when he made the movie, and his character might have been as young as fifty. I started college when I was thirty-six, and graduated when I was forty. Many other students were also adults, quite a few of them older than I was.
shareYeah, there were some people in my college courses who were in their 30s-50s or so. For one reason or another, they needed to learn the material. There's no age limit; nobody's going to kick you out and say, "You're too old to be studying and learning!" ;P
share
"My Little Throny! I used to wonder what bloodshed could be..."
While, 30-35 year olds regularly attend college now (I was 37 when I finished my Masters), it was more unusual then and women were definitely not doing it in large numbers. I think we have to assume that Cagney was 40ish in the movie despite his age or it gets quite creepy (35 year old college student and 18-year old girl not looking at forming a family).
The way they present it as more of a youthful mistake rather than some middle-aged guy worrying that a simple dalliance weighing down his eventual career.
"The way they present it as more of a youthful mistake rather than some middle-aged guy worrying that a simple dalliance weighing down his eventual career."
...Still waiting for the rest of this sentence.
I just spotted a goof where Cagney says in answer to a graduation year question, '36
(1936) but if you watch his lips he clearly says '35.I have the feeling chronology gave the makers of this flick a hard time :-)