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. (***)

The Hardy Family made its debut for MGM in this film, A Family Affair. But to those who've seen other films of the series it looks like Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker, and Sara Haden were all dropped into another family of Hardys in an alternate universe Carvel.

Judge and Mrs. Hardy started out here as Lionel Barrymore and Spring Byington and they had another older daughter played by Julia Haydon. Haydon has marriage problems with her estranged husband Allen Vincent. Parker is quarreling with her boyfriend Eric Linden and Mickey Rooney is having his eternal problems with the opposite sex. All that however plays into the main plot line of this film, Judge Hardy's re-election is in peril over an injunction he issued against building a dam.

That was the difference between this Hardy films and the rest to follow with Lewis Stone and Fay Holden as the Hardy parents. The kids even Mickey Rooney are clearly in support of Lionel Barrymore. That would not be the case in the rest of the series.

Talk about judicial activism, when the man who originally brought the suit wants to the withdraw because he's been bribed, Barrymore throws him out on his ear. I can't think of another judge anywhere in the real world who wouldn't want to clear his docket if the parties settled out of court. He continues on and Barrymore's political opponents who have a vested and hidden interest in the dam played by Selmer Jackson and Charley Grapewin try to block his party from renominating him.

Of course it all works out in the end as it always did. Lionel Barrymore was no less wise and no less honest than Lewis Stone in subsequent films.

A Family Affair is certainly a tribute to the simpler times it was made in, but still nice viewing.

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?

This is the first of the Hardy Family series of movies. The formula for that series is well known and a part of film lore. This film helps establish some of the values that made America fall in love with The Hardy's, but there are differences in this film that set it apart.

The actors who portray the Hardy's are not all the same. Mickey Rooney, who later became the focus of the family by dint of his energetic and lovable performances, is here. But Judge Hardy and his wife are played by Lionel Barrymore and Spring Byington. It would be easy to prefer the actors who carried on these roles in the later episodes, but Barrymore plays the judge with an energy that is suited for this story (see the scene where he physically throws a man out of his chambers) and Byington, in a subordinate role, really displays the love of a mother and wife (note her reaction when her eldest daughter reveals the path her marriage has taken).

It is true that the Andy Hardy movies are anchored in the values that middle America sees as sacrosanct: good citizenship, democracy, the primacy of the family, a religious outlook. This film establishes those values, but if one looks closer, it is easy to see (in this film) how flimsy those values may be. In even a more dramatic way than Inge's Picnic demonstrates, A Family Affair reveals how shallow people and society may be.

Good citizenship may be an established basis for societies and their governments, but the political process is depicted in this film as run by a corrupt political machine designed to profit ruthless men who care only about their own wealth. Judge Hardy is an exception--an educated man who is willing to suffer scorn in the name of duty and the concept of justice.

Religious values may be advertised as charitable and forgiving, but this film shows that the measure of a town's morals is not how many churches dot the landscape or how many Bible verses are read. In a small town where a man's reputation is his measure and agreements are made on the basis of handshakes, we see that many delight in ruining reputations and that the mob mentality prevails when times get tough.

Democracy might be touted as the cornerstone of American governmental process, but the rule of the majority is nothing more than mob rule. Government's true rule is to protect the rights of those in the minority also.

In the end, it is strength of the Hardy family unit--personified by Judge Hardy--that pulls the family through the crises of its individuals and its external stresses. When Judge Hardy strides into the convention and Andy yells "Give it to them with both barrels, Dad," he has no inkling what his father intends. He displays a fundamental faith in his father and the principles he stands for. His father beams in response, because it is that trust he most cherishes, knowing it binds the family and protects them against any threats.

The primacy of the family is a theme that runs through all of the Hardy Family films and it is one of the reasons this series was so popular.

A Family Affair is well worth seeing, both because it is the first in a series and because it stands apart from the others. There is even a great chase scene. Such action was not used in the later Hardy Family films, which focused entirely on personal interactions.