A Family Affair

This was a charming movie which I unfortunately tuned into half way through, shown on Turner Classic Movies in the wee hours on May 19, 2004. I'll look for it again and tape it. I was surprised to see Lionel Barrymore as Judge Hardy. Very creditable performance. Probably he wasn't used again in the resultant series because of his ill health, but I'm just guessing. It was indeed a treat to see pre-December Bride Spring Byngton (how many of you readers can name her co-stars in that sit com?). And who can name the Western series she was featured in some 40 years ago? I digress. Turner has just started Judge Hardy's Children with Lewis Stone taking his rightful place as Judge Hardy. It's 4:32 am and I think I'm hooked on the students of Carvel High. Check out A Family Affair, you'll like it. Ted Turner must own the rights, so how about an Andy Hardy DVD box?

Just watched this, the first film in the Hardy Family series. Lionel Barrymore, who I'll always first think of as Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life-my favorite movie, is the Judge Hardy character who's in it with threats of no renomination because of something he's against resulting in his offspring not liking him as well. Mickay Rooney is here as Andy Hardy. He was 16 at the time. Spring Byington is the mother. Both she and Barrymore would reunite for You Can't Take It With You a year later. Nice mix of drama and comedy throughout. Mickey is especially funny but there's also a turn by screen drunk Arthur Housman who I usually associate with Laurel & Hardy. So on that note, I highly recommend A Family Affair.

This is a excellent start to the film career of Mickey Rooney. His talents here shows that a long career is ahead for him. The car and truck chase is exciting for the 1937 era. This start of the Andy Hardy series is an American treasure in my book. Spring Byington performance is excellent as usual. Please Mr Rooney or owners of the film rights, take a chance and get this produced on DVD. I think it would be a winner.

A FAMILY AFFAIR (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1937), directed by George B. Seitz, may not be an early screen adaptation to what developed into a five season television series of "Family Affair" (1966-1971) featuring the likes of Uncle Bill (Brian Keith), Mr. French (Sebastian Cabot), and the three orphans, Cissy, Buffy and Jodie. This family affair in this case happens to be the screen introduction to an entire different family altogether, that of The Hardys from the small town of Carvel, population 25,000. Initially a Broadway play by Aurania Rouveral , it developed into this movie based on similarities and castings of Eugene O'Neill's screen adaptation to AH WILDERNESS (MGM, 1935) featuring Lionel Barrymore, Spring Byington, Eric Linden, Cecilia Parker and Mickey Rooney, who all were reunited into this little 69 minute programmer which proved popular enough to develop into a family film series. Before becoming relatively known as "The Andy Hardy Series," with some recasting and revisions, the central character for this introduction was not on Andy Hardy but that of Judge James K. Hardy.

Judge James K. Hardy (Lionel Barrymore) is a respected judge in a small town of Carvel, with a family consisting of wife, Emily (Spring Byington), daughters, Joan (Julie Hayden), Marion (Cecilia Parker); son or "kid brother" Andy (Mickey Rooney), along with their live-in Aunt Millie (Sara Haden). The story opens with reporters leaving the Carvel Daily Star for the courtroom where Judge Hardy adjourns a case and later signs a restraining order regarding the prevention of the construction of an aqueduct, causing Hardy to lose his popularity with the neighboring townspeople who oppose the judge with his old-fasshioned ideas. Joan, the eldest daughter, is having marital problems with her husband, William Boothe Martin (Allen Vincent). Marion returns home from college after being away a year, later introducing the family to Wayne Trent III (Eric Linden), a young architect she met while on the train bound for home. Then there's girl-shy Andy, about to attend a party, being asked to chaperone Polly Benedict (Margaret Marquis), a girl he has known since kindergarten. Further situations arise when political enemies try to ruin Judge Hardy's good name through scandals placed in the local newspaper to get him impeached out of office.

A FAMILY AFFAIR is more drama than comedy. The only moment of humor involves Marion and Wayne in a car stranded on the road without gasoline in the middle of nowhere, being pulled down by rope by another car on a curvy country road in high speed by a couple of drunks (Arthur Housman and Don Barclay). This scene is more suspensful than humorous, but lightens up the proceedings to follow. Mickey Rooney's Andy Hardy is here, but there's little of him or his antics to go around. Though the Hardy's have two daughters, only the Joan character is never seen nor seen nor mentioned in future installments. Cecilia Parker, with darker hair here as opposed to blonde, would resume her character in the series under the recast players of Lewis Stone (Judge Hardy), Emily Hardy (Fay Holden), Ann Rutherford (Polly Benedict), and sometimes Betty Ross Clark (Aunt Millie) before Sara Haden became a permanent fixture for the duration of the series. Others seen in A FAMILY AFFAIR are: Charley Grapewin (Frank Redman); Selmer Jackson (Hoyt Wells); Harlan Briggs (Oscar Stubbins); Sam McDaniel ("Whitey"), and Erville Alderson (Dave, the Bailiff).

While not a memorable as AH! WILDERNESS nor the Hardy movie series that followed, notably LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY (1938) featuring Mickey with Judy Garland, A FAMILY AFFAIR comes as a sheer reminder to television dramady programs following the same stature as "Father Knows Best," starring Robert Young and Jane Wyatt, where Father is always around to help with family problems. Quite agreeable viewing, with sole interest in seeing Lionel Barrymore's take as Judge Hardy, minus any father-and-son, "man-to-man" talks with Andy as Lewis Stone did that would later make the series so famous . This wholesome Hardy series in fact did more for Mickey Rooney than any other performers. This is where it all began. This was the Hardy's family affair.

Never distributed on video cassette, A FAMILY AFFAIR, and other "Andy Hardy" episodes (1937-1958), can be seen and enjoyed on Turner Classic Movies cable channel. (***)

... as the cast is quite different in this installment versus all of the others. Lewis Stone takes the place of Lionel Barrymore as Judge James Hardy, Fay Holden is Mrs. Hardy versus Spring Byington, Polly Benedict is played by Ann Rutherford, and oldest daughter Joan is erased from existence. With her being married, maybe MGM thought that keeping her in the cast for further installments would be just too busy and crowded.

Here, Judge Hardy has issued a temporary restraining order on the building of a new aqueduct for the town of Carvel, in response to a petition by a citizen. But the town businessmen object to Hardy's action and threaten to oppose to his renomination at an upcoming political convention if he won't withdraw the restraining order. When the townspeople hear about it, they are up in arms, because they see it as needlessly impeding progress. Andy Hardy is mad at his dad because his new girlfriend, Polly Benedict, can't see him because her father is mad the judge over the restraining order. Middle daughter Marion is mad at her dad because the guy she has gotten serious with doesn't have a job if the aqueduct isn't being built. And finally, the judge's oldest daughter Joan is on the verge of divorce because her husband - incorrectly - suspects her of infidelity and has left her. So the judge has his hands full both at home AND at the office.

Don't expect a big dose of Andy Hardy in this one - at this point he's just an energetic supporting player as this is Lionel Barrymore's film all of the way. But other than that, everybody is pretty much in character right out of the gate. Later in the same year that this film came out, Lionel Barrymore would become wheelchair bound due to a combination of arthritis and a broken hip. Thus it would have been impossible for him to continue to play Judge Hardy. Instead he was made Dr. Gillespie in the Dr. Kildare series of movies, also at MGM.

I'd recommend this series of films. They are very well done to be a B series, but then MGM had the money and star power to stock their Bs with good production values and good actors. And they are a window into the world of small-town America in the years running up to WWII - a world that would pretty much vanish with the young men all going to war, then to college on the GI bill, and then on to office jobs and homes in the suburbs of the big cities.