Andy Hardy Comes Home

TCM ran all but 2 of the Hardy Family movies a couple of weeks ago and, thank heavens for my DVR, I was able to watch them all and just finished up the series.

Watching Mickey Rooney "grow up" was wonderful; the turn around, I think, being in "Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever", and even more so in "Life Begins For Andy Hardy"; those two films in particular in the series contained some great character development for Andy and I loved seeing how Mickey Rooney handled it. And Andy Hardy Comes Home was a good conclusion.

I found that I didn't need to know the back story of how Andy met Jane or ended up in California; I enjoyed seeing the little bits and tributes to the earlier movies (Andy tossing his hat onto the peg, the clips of the girls, even the "Carvel Hi" banner in his bedroom) and Andy going in to his father's study when he needed to think... I got teary eyed seeing the portrait of Lewis Stone over the fireplace.

Because I was able to watch the movies so close together, I was able to notice little things that they missed in the continuity: the picture of "Betsy Booth" was different from the one Andy was originally given (see Andy Hardy Meets Debutant), and the front door of the house opened on the opposite side (see Love Laughs At Andy Hardy when he gets locked out of the house), but even that was fun to see. I found this to be a good place to end the series.

To see Andy taking on his father's mantel, literally, was very satisfying. Andy is no longer the skittish young boy/man that the audiences grew up with, but then, we all grow older and are not the same people we were in our youth.

I was glad to see that Andy Hardy came home!

This movie hails from a time when MGM had fallen on hard times and was looking to relive it's glory days of the 30's and 40's by creating new versions of it's classic films. The Andy Hardy series was the role of Mickey Rooney's career. This film was a nice effort. A shame Lewis Stone who played Judge Hardy passed away in 1953, his absence really hurt this 1958 remake. Ann Rutherford's absence as Andy's old love Polly Benedict also hurt this film. This is strictly a trip down memory lane movie for old Andy Hardy fans. The problem is it is rarely shown. I saw it last one Saturday in 1987 and have not seen it since. Turner Classic Movies which owns the series does show the older Andy Hardy movies but not this one.

After an absence of fourteen years, the Andy Hardy series is resumed with this attempt to regain the magic of the previous fifteen episodes. A series of flashbacks reminds the viewer of the beautiful and talented women who were Andy's former flames. Most of the original cast returns. But this film feels entirely different.

The original script would have had Andy reconnect with Polly, but instead he returns to dear old Carvel a married man, with a family on the west coast. And I am glad for the change, because I never thought of Polly as a pleasant, reliable young woman.

The story is about Andy returning home on a business trip, to locate land for a manufacturing plant. His efforts are thwarted by an unscrupulous businessman and small-town fears. Andy yearns to rediscover the hometown of his youth, but finds that emotional ties can fray.

The story lacks the energy and comedy of the earlier Andy Hardy installments. And the dramatic tension is rather weak, despite intimations that Andy's job is on the line. Still, it's fun to see Andy Hardy again, now serving as head of the family patriarchy.

This could've been the perfect Hardy reunion film, but there are several things wrong or missing here. Andy Hardy is coming home to Carvel from out west 12 years after the last Hardy film. Hardy's dad Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone) is absent but Lewis Stone passed away in 1953, 5 years before this film. But nothing is mentioned in the film about what happened to Andy's dad. Polly (Ann Rutherford) is not in this film, and she was a major character in the series as Andy's on again off again girlfriend. Betsy Booth (Judy Garland) is not in this film either, but that's most likely due to Judy having been fired from MGM in 1951 and the Hardy films are all MGM. I still wished Judy would've come back for "Andy Hardy comes home" considering all the years she and Mickey did films together. Then the flashback of Andy and Betsy(Judy) that Andy had on the plane was actually a clip from "Babes in arms", which was a Judy/Mickey film but not a Hardy film. There are a number of good clips with Judy they could've used from " Love finds Andy Hardy" or "Life begins for Andy Hardy". Patricia Breslin (Andy's mom) and Fay Holden really looked older here, but so did Mickey. 12+ years is enough time for noticeable aging. The juvenile, energized, rambunctious Mickey from the late 30s and 40s was gone. So was his slick womanizing ways, Andy always was a real girl magnet in all his earlier pictures. When Andy returns to Carvel, we see him in a soda shop trying to dance with the late 1950s teens and tire out a lot more easy than he would've 12-20 years earlier. I've realized here how Mickey, Judy Garland, Ann Rutherford, etc. are a level earlier to the late 50s jukebox generation and have passed by their heyday now. They were the late 30s and 40s "swing" generation. It's almost kind of sad to see Mickey here compared to how he was. There's a plot about plans for an aircraft plant being built in town and a lot of the townspeople objecting to it. That part was sorta OK. But a lot of the spirit from the earlier films seemed to have passed by now.

In his autobiography, Mickey Rooney indicated he had high hopes for this movie but really hated what it turned out to be. He didn't say why, but I have to agree with his sentiments. It's a downer.

The Andy Hardy films of the '30s and '40s had an abundance of humor, or at least good humor. And a lot of the magic was the town of Carvel itself. It was an earlier version of TV's Mayberry -- a gentle, peaceful place that anyone would love to call home. In this movie, however, Carvel is a gloomy little backwater, left behind by postwar prosperity. You can't blame Andy for wanting to rescue it, even if his plan for accomplishing that is dubious.

If you're an Andy Hardy fan, you'll want to see this film out of a certain kind of loyalty. But don't expect it to be fun.