Those Were the Days! 1940

On their 35th wedding anniversary, Petey Simmons, William Holden, and Martha Scroggs reminisce about how they first met in college. Petey, a wealthy newcomer, quickly becomes the center of attention as rival fraternities vie for his time, and his ego swells as both fraternities and campus girls jockey for a piece of his attention.

At a school dance, his shy roommate arranges for campus beauty Mirabel Allstairs, Judith Barrett, to be his date, while Petey ignores his own partner, Martha Scroggs, Bonita Granville, and dances with other girls.

Petey, who had previously been arrested, pulls pranks on campus—changing a professor’s clocks to delay an exam. A later act of vandalism leads to another arrest. The judge—Judge Squire Jennings, Aldrich Bowker—threatens to throw the book at him, sentencing him to six months in jail. Petey asks for a week’s continuance before sentencing and spends that time courting Martha after discovering she is the judge’s daughter.

When the scheme is revealed, Petey is locked in the town jail by the angry judge. Yet Martha is smitten with him and deliberately gets arrested so that she can occupy the cell next to Petey’s, holding hands between the bars.

With the flashback complete, the present-day sequence shows the old judge still not fully believing how his daughter and son-in-law came together. They also learn that Petey Jr. has just been arrested, but the judge is not surprised.