Young Woodley on AllMovie

Based on the play by John Van Druten, Young Woodley stars Frank Lawton in the title role. An 18-year-old student, Woodley nearly throws away his future when he falls in love with Laura Simmons (Madeleine Carroll), the wife of his schoolmaster (Roger Livesey). The husband can't throw Woodley out of school for fear that Laura will leave him. But when Woodley gets into a fight with another student over Laura's honor, Simmons pounces upon the opportunity and "sacks" the boy. Rather than divide the film up into heroes and villains, the screenwriters have been scrupulously fair with everyone: even the stuffy, sardonic husband comes off as a human being rather than a mustache-twirling villain. A big hit in England, Young Woodley didn't do quite as well in the U.S., where romantic-triangle films were fairly commonplace in 1930.