In its song-and-dance trappings ["Seventeen"] runs through the agonies of the dress suit and the fraternity pin with more eager accent on youth and less real sparkle than other recent comedies about high school America…. "Seventeen" is a flimsy satire, even for a summer show….

The more intimate details arranged by Miss Benson have to do with Willie's affection for Miss Lola Pratt, a blonde and babytalking summer visitor, with a Yale man thrown in late in the first act when the teen-age joke has been hammered to exhaustion. It is all much too bouncy to believe, and without enough keenness or variety of humor to gain any great comic validity….

"Seventeen" is a breezy show, but it is more imitative than fresh, more exaggerated than witty. It supposes that to be young and to be in a state of infatuation is automatically hilarious; but, without the insight...