Hoosier Schoolboy

Nne Nagel takes up her post as history teacher in the school to find a town divided by a strike. The local dairy farmers can't get a fair price for their milk from dairy owner William Gould. He's losing money trucking in milk from other locations. As the strikers start to grow violent, Miss Nagel has to deal with Gould's well-meaning son, Frank Shields Sr. She also has a problem student in Mickey Rooney. His father, Edward Pawley, won the Congressional Medal of Honor in the Great War, but has turned into a layabout drunk. Rooney uses his fists to quiet snickering about his old man.

Director William Nigh has to contend with a script that is telegraphic in its story telling. Nonetheless, he gets some fine performances, including that of Rooney, who would play a more extreme redemptive character in the following year's Boys Town Between the supporting players, including Harry Hayden, Doris Rankin, and Fred Kelsey -- for once, not playing a cop! -- there are fine moments in this movie that more than make up for its brusque plotting.

Mickey Rooney was one of the most capable actors Hollywood was lucky enough to have. Ever. But he too often needed a stronger director to hold him back.

Some of his best performances were given during his younger years. He could just walk into a scene and, even without saying a word, steal it all.

Unfortunately, too often he was over the top, as in "Boys Town," where his character's little shadow has been struck by a car on the highway. Mick's character picks up the injured boy and very dramatically shakes the youngster.

Well, if the boy had managed to survive the auto's strike, being handled like that would have killed him.

Bad moves by the director and by Rooney.

In "Hoosier Schoolboy," however, he and director William Nigh create a perfect picture of a strong character thwarted and defensive because of a drunken father who is constantly derided by the rest of the town.

The script is slightly flawed in that certain characters change too quickly. Maybe the barely one-hour running time didn't give the company enough time for all characters to become fully fleshed out.

"Jack," played by the unknown-to-me Frank Shields, of a marvelous voice, seems believable, as written and as played, the spoiled rich kid who grows and matures because of his interest in the new teacher.

Anne Nagel plays the teacher as a strong and caring person and she too is quite believable. (She was always so completely in control of her character, so perfectly at ease in front of a camera, I wonder why she is not better known today.)

In fact, all the performances are as close to perfect as one could want or expect, and the directing, photography, and editing are too. Only that small script problem mars this excellent movie.

These stories of economic conflict coupled with a veteran's mental problems from the war are still relevant. Unfortunately, as long as we have governments and their component politicians and bureaucrats, these kinds of conflicts and problems will probably always be with us. Needlessly.

I foolishly think mostly of Westerns when I think of Monogram, but "Hoosier Schoolboy," other than its pointless generic title, is a superlative example of small-budget drama,

I can't recommend it strongly enough. And it's available for viewing at YouTube. I hope you go watch.

Shockey Carter "Mickey Rooney" is the school bad boy. He fights with everyone and even knocks the books out of the hands of girls. His teacher wants to save him. Problem, Carter's father is a drunk. Teacher first must save the father. Mission to achieving this is a job for the dad. This film should have kept the plot of bad boy vs caring teacher. Half way thru the film a total new direction. Evil businessman vs the striking workers of his business. Two plots in one movie with the second one sinking the film the drain.

"This easygoing rural drama stars Mickey Rooney as a young boy who idolizes his father, a shell-shocked alcoholic war veteran. The boy must protect his dad against the recriminations of the townsfolk," according to the DVD sleeve, "An understanding schoolteacher comes along to rescue Rooney and his father from a life of poverty." She arrives in the Indiana town in the middle of a milk farmer's strike.

In his last really low-budget (ie Monogram) feature before super-stardom, Mr. Rooney is refreshingly natural and scrappy as the typical "bad boy" saved by a good-natured soul. That role is supplied by sweet, pretty history teacher Anne Nagel (as Mary Evans). Her tentative romance with handsome Frank Shields (Brooke Shield's tennis pro grandfather) and the strikers' subplot tie the storyline together neatly.

***** Hoosier Schoolboy (7/7/37) William Nigh ~ Mickey Rooney, Anne Nagel, Frank Shields, Edward Pawley

This is a decent low-budget drama with some interesting themes, and it also includes solid performances by Anne Nagel and a young Mickey Rooney. It ties together several plot lines in a way that works rather well, and although most of the characters remain one-dimensional, the overall situation is interesting enough to hold your attention.

Nagel plays a strong but sensitive schoolteacher who arrives in a new town just as feelings are running high due to a strike by the local dairy farmers, who aren't getting the price they want for their cows' milk. Rooney plays one of the students, a cynical outcast with a father who is a shell-shocked former war hero. These issues would probably have struck a chord in a 1930s audience, and to some degree the ideas are still of some relevance now.

The story that develops moves a little unevenly, and eventually it gets a little predictable, which keeps it from being a better movie overall. But it never loses your interest, and it's not bad at all for such an inexpensively-made feature.