Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever

Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939)

*** (out of 4)

The seventh film in the series finds Andy (Mickey Rooney) heartbroken after Polly (Ann Rutherford) refuses to see him because she gets a crush on a Navy guy. Andy's heartache quickly turns around when he gets a new drama teacher (Helen Gilbert) and quickly falls for her. Meanwhile, Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone) finds himself in trouble when he gives his life savings for a business plan, which turns out to be a scam. If the innocence of the Andy Hardy series is something that's going to bother you then I'm sure this entry isn't going to change your opinion but fans of the series should find enough good things here to make it worth viewing. I was actually quick shocked to see how much more drama there is rather than comedy. When you think 1939 and hearing a plot about Andy getting a crush on his teacher you pretty much expect it to be handled in a slapstick, silly manor but that's not the case. The film is extremely serious about Andy's love for this teacher and there are a couple quite dark scenes where the two talk about certain boundaries that shouldn't be crossed with a teacher and her student. I thought the screenplay handled the drama extremely well and this is especially true towards the end of the film when the kids are putting on a play written by Andy and he gets to spill his emotions out for everyone to see. Rooney's performance during this dramatic sequence is actually some of the best acting I've seen from him as the power is certainly there. With that said, Rooney also gets to show off his comic timing early on and no one could ever say he didn't bring fire and energy to the role. Rutherford is also excellent here and thankfully her character is given a much more important role than what she had previous seen. The two of them make for a great team and really sell the film well. Stone, as you'd expect, delivers another very strong performance as does the other regulars like Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden and Sara Haden. Gilbert didn't have a very large career but I found her to be very good here as well. ANDY HARDY GETS SPRING FEVER isn't the best of the MGM series but it has enough charm and good will to make it worth viewing.

I certainly watched the wrong Andy Hardy movies first. Love Finds Andy Hardy and Andy Hardy Meets Debutante are so silly, all ridiculous pantomimes of a teenage boy's hormones, but the other fourteen films aren't like that. They're supposed to be about the patriarch, Lewis Stone, who helps his children through their problems, a precursor to television shows like Father Knows Best. The series even uses the same theme music during the opening credits in every film, like a television theme-only these movies were made before television. Much of Mickey Rooney's character is how he tries to handle his raging hormones, but much of it isn't. In this one, he falls for his drama teacher, Helen Gilbert, and while sometimes he's goofy when trying to act like a grown-up and speaking in a different, theatrical voice, sometimes he's heartbreakingly real and insecure in his feelings. He talks it out with Helen and with his dad, and they both help him through it.

Mickey makes his character human, and even though he does his signature whooping, he gives a lesson to his teenage audience: it's okay to want to grow up, but don't rush it. Learning to take responsibility should be a slow process, and you should be able to enjoy being a kid without complications ruining things. In this one, he gets chosen by Helen to write the school play, and that's enough responsibility for any high schooler. "He's a regular T.A. Edison!" Lewis Stone exclaims proudly, a foreshadowing-and perhaps plugging-of Mickey's next year's film Young Thomas Edison, because his play has volcano pyrotechnics incorporated in the script. Fay Holden and Cecilia Parker are in this one, of course, but they're not prominently featured. If Mama Hardy and Marian are your favorites, check out You're Only Young Once and Love Laughs at Andy Hardy.

ANDY HARDY GETS SPRING FEVER (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1939), directed by W.S. Van Dyke II, marks the seventh installment to the "Judge Hardy's Family/Andy Hardy" series, and second film of three film releases of 1939. Being the first in the series directed by someone other than George B. Seitz, it also marked the second in the series bearing "Andy Hardy" in its movie title, following LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY (1938). By this time, it was the teenage son, Andy, who becomes the center of attention rather than the fatherly judge, who is always around for those "man to man" talks with his son whenever there's a problem. For this entry, it's not Andy who gets into situations he must handle, but his father as well. Though Andy doesn't get a fever of sickness during the spring, its term "spring fever" is actually in reference to falling in love, which happens in most cases in the spring. This time, Andy has fallen in love with someone other than a girl of his own age.

The story opens traditionally in the courtroom where Judge James K. Hardy (Lewis Stone) is fining a young man $10 for kissing a young lady in a parked car. Because it's spring, he suspends the fine. In his chambers, Hardy is visited by James Willett (Stanley Andrews), a chemist, and Mark Hansen (Byron Foulger), his partner, who inform him that his aquaduct property, consisting of a mineral used to making aluminum in its soil, is valuable. Hardy later involves friends and associates to take part in the investments for the property, and soon permits his daughter, Marion (Cecilia Parker), to work as secretary for these two gentlemen, who now have a business office in town. As Hardy's 17-year-old son, Andrew (Mickey Rooney), he becomes jealous of his girlfriend, Polly Benedict's (Ann Rutherford) involvement with the extremely tall Lieutenant Charles Copley (Robert Kent) of the United States Navy, Andy's concerns are easily forgotten when the girl crazy Carvel High School teenager takes a "romantic" interest in his substitute dramatics teacher, Rose Meredith (Helen Gilbert). As Andrew's original story, "Adrift in Tahiti" becomes the subject of the upcoming school play, he not only helps with its staging with cast members, but soon steps over his bounds by falling in love with his 23-year-old teacher and wanting to marry her. With this being a worry for the judge, more problems arise when the wise old man carries a burden of guilt as to whether or not he's been swindled out of the $17,000 he's given to those two men. Also in the cast are series regulars, Fay Holden (Emily Hardy); Sara Haden (Aunt Milly Forrest); Addison Richards (George Benedict); Erville Alderson (Henry, the Bailiff); and Georgie Breakston ("Beezy" Anderson). Terry Kilburm, who played Tiny Tim in A CHRISTMAS CAROL (MGM, 1938) starring Reginald Owen as Scrooge, appears as one of Andy's younger classmates, Harmon Higgenbotham Jr., better known as "Stinkin' Plastor"; and Sidney Miller, a semi-regular of the series, appearing briefly as Sidney.

An agreeable "Hardy Family" production that contains two situations for the price of one, first the judge's problem, then the major one involving Andy's crush on his schoolteacher. How these situations are handled make this installment worth viewing. The teacher in question is played by an attractive young woman named Helen Gilbert in her movie debut. While the "Hardy Series"has become a good introduction for its MGM starlets that included popular likes of Esther Williams or Kathryn Grayson in later years, Helen Gilbert remains unknown and someone who would become labeled in "Whatever became of ? ..." listing. Gilbert did appear in other film productions for MGM (A segment in the "Doctor Kildare" series in 1939 for example), other studios and later television through the 1950s, but to no lasting appeal. ANDY HARDY GETS SPRING FEVER shows her off at best advantage as the mature speaking teacher with personal problems of her own. Fans of the series would enjoy this one.

Formerly available on video cassette and later DVD, this and the additional 15 segments of the series, can be found on cable television's Turner Classic Movies. Next in the series, JUDGE HARDY AND SON (1939) (***)

It's springtime. Judge Hardy gets tricked into a crooked business deal. Polly continues to try making Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) jealous. Instead, he falls for his new drama teacher, Miss Rose Meredith.

It's the seventh film in the Hardy family franchise. This one is mostly an Andy Hardy film. The Judge's story is almost secondary and Marian gets folded into it. I don't really care about that story. The rest of the family becomes support characters. It's Andy and his teenage hormones. I would have made Polly much more jealous. This is a silly puppy love crush but the movie loses me when Andy starts planning their future together. I know people got married much younger back in the day and Rose is young enough to not look that creepy. Andy is crushing too hard. I just want more distancing with the crush and do more with Polly. It's a little awkward. The twist ending is an excuse to let Andy off the hook. Rose could have mentioned the surprise a lot sooner.

It's spring and everybody has a corresponding spring in their step. But Andy (Mickey Rooney) quickly loses that spring when he sees that the fleet has landed in Carvel and that Polly Benedict is now keeping company with a member of the US Navy. As an aside, I hope that Andy and Polly never marry - at least not to each other, because both of them have a big problem with arguing, gunny sacking, and fidelity. But I digress.

Then along comes a substitute drama teacher for the last few weeks of the school year. She's beautiful, and she instantly makes Andy forget all about Polly. She asks each member of the class to try their hand at writing a play for the class to perform at the end of the school year, and Andy ends up writing the winning entry. It's a very silly thing in which Polly is a south sea island girl who jumps into a volcano because Andy's character rejects her. So you see, Andy hasn't completely forgotten about Polly!

Meanwhile there is a rather odd side plot in which Judge Hardy gets taken in by a couple of con-men claiming they are going to build an aluminum factory in Carvel because the surrounding land - land that the judge owns - is loaded with bauxite, the precursor to aluminum. Unfortunately, the judge also gets his friends to invest before the bad guys leave town.

So this time both the judge and Andy are in a jam. Andy is in love with the drama teacher. Judge Hardy, who by virtue of his job description is supposed to have sound judgment, has fallen for an obvious ruse. So this time Judge Hardy doesn't hide a knowing smile when Andy comes to him for a "man-to-man talk" and tells him how much in love he is with this 23-year-old drama teacher. After all, they are both in hot water because they saw what they wanted to see.

There's some really good acting by Rooney when he's playing his final scene in the school play. He's supposed to be speaking his lines to Polly, but it's more like he's speaking his lines AT Polly. His bitter lines are instead delivered to the drama teacher, who he feels has led him on (she has not!).