MOTHER IS A WHOLESOME FRESHMAN

(SOURCE: April 1949 Photoplay)

Don't go looking for this one to purchase. Apparently it's not available. I just checked TCM and they don't have it listed to be shown anytime soon. Doggone it! Now that I've seen this ad I'm curious.

Synopsis from TCM

In New York, Abby Abbott and her seventeen-year-old daughter Susan live on a trust fund established by Abby's late husband. The money is allocated every three years by the family attorney, John Heaslip, who advises Abby that she is currently overdrawn and that the next payment will not occur until the following year. Abby, who has rejected Heaslip's proposal of marriage, is concerned that Susan will not be able to continue her studies at Pointer College, and investigates a scholarship fund, set up there by her grandmother, which awards $3,000 annually to any female of high morals with the name of Abigail Fortitude. Like her grandmother, Abby's maiden name is Abigail Fortitude, so she decides to enroll at Pointer as the scholarship would see them through until the next trust fund payment. Abby is also anxious to check on Susan, who is enamoured of a young English professor, Richard Michaels, who has secretly been writing pulp murder mysteries under a pen name. Abby decides that she will not reveal that she is Susan's mother, but after she manages to pass the entrance exam, she has an interview with Dean Gillingham, who has noted that she and Susan share the same home address. After the dean agrees to keep her secret, Abby enrolls in takes Richard's English course. Richard shows considerable interest in the mature, sophisticated woman in his class, and later, suggests that Abby could benefit from additional tutoring and arranges to see her one evening at his house. What Abby initially fears might be a compromising situation turns out to be a pleasant evening when Dean and Mrs. Gillingham arrive as fellow dinner guests. During the evening, however, the dean slips up and calls Abby, "Mrs. Abbott." Both men are surprised when Abby remarks that one of her classmates is reading an "awfully lurid thing" called The Gravedigger and the Chambermaid , which Susan had earlier purchased. When Richard escorts Abby back to her dorm, he asks her if she is married and she explains her situation and that she is Susan's mother. He invites her to the Sophomore Cotillion and they kiss goodnight. Susan, meanwhile, thinks her mother is checking Richard out as a potential son-in-law. Later, matters become complicated when Susan tells her mother that she is really in love with Richard as, by then, Abby is too. When Richard fails to invite her to the cotillion, Susan agrees to go with student body president Beaumont Jackson and, unaware that Richard has invited Abby, asks John Heaslip to escort her. Abby does not want to hurt Susan and tries to get out of going with Richard but he insists. On their way into the dance, Beau surprises Susan by telling her that he is in love with her. At the dorm, meanwhile, Richard and John both show up to escort Abby and reveal that they know each other from student days at Yale. At the dance, John surprises Abby with the news that he has sold some of her stocks and that she is now financially stable and need not continue in college. Susan is upset about her mother being with Richard, but when Abby decides to give him up, he tries to convince Susan that she should encourage her mother in her love for him. Later, as Abby says goodbye to Richard, Susan runs up and begs her to stay at the college and with Richard. After Susan returns to Beau, Richard confesses that he is the author of The Gravedigger and the Chambermaid and Abby confesses that she has read it--twice.

Okay, this is another one I've never seen. I used to watch the Loretta Young show as a kid just to see her enter the room. That's all I remember about the show. The sweeping entrance. She was a stunningly beautiful woman. And I've always liked Van Johnson. If anyone sees this is going to be on somewhere give me a heads-up.

If they made this movie today the Young character would probably be played by Pamela Anderson in a see through blouse and Adam Sandler in the Van Johnson part. You just know they'd make the remake tacky and stupid with a lot of 14 year old boy humor.

You can read more about the movie here at IMDB.