Our Hearts Were Growing Up is the sequel to Paramount's surprise 1944 hit
Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. The first film was based on the memoirs of actress
Cornelia Otis Skinner; the sequel was inspired by the fevered imaginations of the screenwriters.
Gail Russell plays Ms. Skinner, while
Diana Lynn costars as Cornelia's best friend Emily Kimbrough. This time the girls visit the college boyfriends, only to become involve with a pair of benign bootleggers, portrayed by
Brian Donlevy and
William Demarest. Their misguided association with the criminal results in consternation for Cornelia's father, the eminent stage actor Otis Skinner (
Charlie Ruggles). Ironically, Gail Russell, who played Cornelia Otis Skinner in both of the
Our Hearts films, was cast opposite the real Ms. Skinner in the 1943 ghost chiller
The Uninvited--and was nearly murdered by the older actress in the course of the plotline! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide