Review of Young and Willing

Francis Swann's play "Out of the Frying Pan" becomes manic, cringe-inducing screwball comedy, completed in 1941, featuring William Holden and Susan Hayward in early career roles. Robert Benchley gives the witless proceedings a little kick portraying a theatrical producer who rents a room in a New York City boarding house under an alias, but is soon discovered by six would-be actors (guys and gals living together!) who share the apartment upstairs. Hayward, already possessing a distinct spark and a keen awareness of herself as a screen personality, shows up all the other young people in the cast, Holden included. Sub-plot about the ditzy blonde roommate whose father wants to take her home to Rhode Island is agonizingly unfunny, matched only by Florence MacMichael's grating performance as a helium-voiced relative of the girl who's anxious to put the kibosh on the male-female arrangement. One or two funny lines in the first act, otherwise a creaking, wheezing bore. * from ****