Andy Hardy Comes Home

Andy Hardy Comes Home is pretty terrible. You know you're old when you can remember having seen an Andy Hardy film in the theater. I saw this with full knowledge of the Andy Hardy lore having seen them on TV. If anything this picture proves what Thomas Wolfe said about not being able to go home again.

However what is so interesting about this film is the default story about Andy Hardy wanting to bring an aircraft plant to Carvel against the objection of most of the town. This was done in the light of the complete faith of the time in favor of "progress". The objections of the towns people now seem eminently reasonable. What seemed to be progress now seems suicidal. The Carvels of this world were destroyed by exactly this type of development. Maybe sometimes the most bland film can be a significant social document over and above its quality as a film. Excruciating as drama or comedy, fascinating as social history.

It's now been 12 years since the last Andy Hardy movie-Love Laughs at Andy Hardy. At the end of that one, Andrew swore to his father-in front of pictures of his past girlfriends-he'd never go crazy over a woman again. Well, we find out in this one he eventually settled with one named Jane (Patricia Breslin) who bore him two kids, Cricket (Gina Gillespie) and Andy Jr. (played by Mickey Rooney's own son, Teddy). We also find out he moved to LA and is now coming back to his hometown of Carvel in order to work out a deal to build a factory there as a lawyer representing a plane company. Nice reunion with Fay Holden as his mom, Sara Haden as Aunt Milly (who it seems is still unmarried), and sis Marian (Cecilia Parker). Looks like other older sis Joan from A Family Affair is conveniently forgotten. (Chuck Cunninghamed, in other words!) No Judge Hardy since Lewis Stone had long passed but his portrait is prominently displayed in his room so that was a nice touch. Also nice to see those pictures of those old girlfriends since they are of Big Stars before becoming so though a little retconning was done concerning Judy Garland's character Betsy Booth since the clip shown of her with Mickey wasn't from any of the series entries but from the musical Babes in Arms. (With Mickey dubbing "Betsy" in place of the actual name of Judy's character there!) Also, before the clip of Mickey with Lana Turner was shown, his friend Beezy (played not by the actor who portrayed him in the previous series entries-George Breakston-but by someone who was Rooney's co-star in a TV series years earlier-Joey Forman) mistakenly ID'd her as a blonde and not a redhead as she was referred as in Love Finds Andy Hardy. As with the previous one-Love Laughs at Andy Hardy-there's a little joke done about Rooney's height when contrasted with someone way taller. In LLAAH, it was Dorothy Ford he towered under, here it's Johnny Weissmuller Jr. as his nephew, Jim. He's probably the weakest of the new players especially during a later sequence when he decides to play music at the Hardy home-when much of the family is gone-while Andy's children are asleep there which he acknowledges to his friends beforehand! Jerry Colonna makes a nice appearance as a soda jerk proprietor who's known Andy for years despite this being his only appearance in the series. It's during this sequence that Andy cuts a little rug with the teens there before "splitting". As series reunions go, this wasn't bad though I had to wonder why Ann Rutherford wouldn't even make a brief appearance as former girlfriend Polly Benedict. I know she didn't think she should be married to Andy but couldn't they have briefly talked about what they've been doing since the last time they saw each other? Oh, and why wasn't the original David Snell theme music used? Okay, in summary, Andy Hardy Comes Home was pretty enjoyable but its time was long past and didn't warrant a "To Be Continued" to be used at the end of this one.

Let me now make note of what happened to the series players: Fay Holden retired after this and died on June 23, 1973.

Sara Haden guested on various TV series before retiring in 1965. She died on September 15, 1981.

Cecilia Parker rarely acted after this, her last role being in 1984. She passed away on July 25, 1993.

What can one say about Mickey Rooney that hasn't been said many times before. Well, he has worked the longest in film having started when a toddler during the '20s up to the time before his death when he appeared in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. When it was released months after his death on April 6, 2014, it carried a dedication to him as well as Robin Williams who also died after filming his appearance in it but before its release. So with that, we say goodbye to Judge Hardy's Family from the town of Carvel....

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.

I finally managed to watch this movie. I had seen every other movie in the Hardy family series and this would, fittingly I thought, close out the series for me.

I must admit I was disappointed in the movie. Perhaps I missed it, but I thought that a little more background should have been provided. There were a few people that were noticeably absent, particularly Andy's father, James Hardy (Lewis Stone). His long-time flame, Polly Benedict (played by Ann Rutherford) was also given little mention beyond seeing her in a clip and seeing her picture.

The Hardy movies made me feel like a part of the family. However in the 12 years since the previous film a lot had obviously happened and there was little or no recap. How did Judge Hardy die? What happened to Marion's husband? How did Marion and Jimmy come to live in the Hardy house? Where was Polly Benedict?

To me the movie seemed to not know whether to stand on its own or to be simply a nostalgia picture. It tries to capitalize on the past movies but is content to introduce several major new characters with little or no explanation. I would have loved to know where he'd met Jane, or how he came to go to California. A theme that seemed to run through the movie was Andy turning into his father: he is asked by his son for "a man to man talk", Andy doesn't understand the new "buzzwords" of his nephew Jimmy's generation. Andy is now a part of the awkward older generation.

I suspect that this movie was intended to relaunch Mickey Rooney's career. That is only my guess, however at the conclusion the words "To Be Continued" seemed pretty obvious that there were to be additional sequels - sequels never made. I imagine when this movie came out movie audiences no longer felt the chemistry that had existed with the original Hardy family. Andy had been the main focus of most of the earlier Hardy movies but now he was the anachronism. He was no longer an idol for younger, hipper audiences. At the same time the supporting cast wasn't up to carrying the lead. Like so many remakes that never really re-capture the magic of the original, Andy Hardy Comes Home just made me appreciate that the producers had been able to capture magic in a bottle in the original movies.

In short, this is the last movie in the series. It doesn't completely close out the series and leaves a lot of questions unanswered, however for Hardy fans, it is still a film worth seeking out. It will make the original movies all that much more special.

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.