The Happy Years in Bloomington, MN

Owen Johnson's novel
The Lawrenceville School Stories
(compiled from short stories originally published in
The Saturday Evening Post
) was the basis for
The Happy Years
. The film is set at an early 20th-century boy's prep school; Dean Stockwell plays an habitual troublemaker sent to this school as a means of straightening him out and making a man of him. At first bullied by the older kids, the pugnacious Stockwell stands his ground until he earns his fellow students' respect. The film adheres strictly to MGM's factory-tested
Boys Town
formula by having Stockwell cleaning up his act and becoming a worthwhile Lawrenceville student. Watch
carefully and you'll spot an unbilled Robert Wagner, in his film debut.