The Courtship of Andy Hardy

Courtship of Andy Hardy, The (1942)

*** (out of 4)

The twelfth entry in the series finds Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) in all sorts of trouble. For starters, he decides to open his own towing company but after a freak accident he's accused of stealing the man's car, which gets him a date in court. He's also got two or three different women he wants but Judge (Lewis Stone) asks him to take a less popular girl (Donna Reed) to a dance so that she can try and forget her parents rocky divorce. Also troubling the Hardy's the the sisters desire to wear more liberal clothing. I had heard mixed things about this entry but for the most part I found it to be entertaining even if it didn't have as many laughs as previous entries that I've seen. I think, for the most part, the film is a straight drama as there are some pretty dark elements scattered throughout. Not only to we have the ugly divorce harming a child but we even have a drunk scene where Judge gets to tell everything a moral story about it. The majority of the film is centered around the "ugly girl turned pretty" storyline, which doesn't really work here too well as Donna Reed looked good in both forms of her character. They really didn't try to ugly her up very much so it's hard to really understand why no one wanted her already. The performances are all what you'd expect with Rooney being as jumpy and lively as ever and Stone coming through with that stern but fair approach. Reed makes quite an impression in her early appearance.

Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone) is in charge of the contentious Nesbit divorce. Their daughter Melodie Nesbit (Donna Reed) had become a ward of the state. The Judge orders that she sees her father but she refuses. Marian Hardy (Cecilia Parker) is back home from the big city. Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) is operating a tow truck and gets mistaken in a car theft. He's also not happy with Marian's new city style.

The franchise seems to be going back to the basics. It's back to the family. It's back to the small town of Carvel. It's back to the comfort of the all-knowing Judge. It does try to deal with the changing styles and divorce. It also has newcomer Donna Reed in one of her early roles. I do wonder if the franchise is getting stale. It's the 12th of 16 movies in the series.

Melodie nesbitt--donna reed accused of stealing car--odd how family handled it asks andy to take melodie out company suing mrs hardy'

"The Courtship of Andy Hardy" is generally a good addition to the franchise. Sadly, though, one of the storylines just makes no sense...hence the score is only 6.

When the story begins, Judge Hardy is presiding over a case involving two horrible parents whose divorce proceedings have drug on for years...all to the detriment of their daughter, Melodie (Donna Reed). Melodie parrots her mother's hatred for the father and she's a lonely, sad young lady. Later in the story, Judge Hardy asks Andy for a favor....to ask Melodie out to the upcoming dance. It turns out that she's never dated anyone and Andy is willing...even though she is shunned by her peers.

There are other parts to the story--such as Marian dating a loser and Mrs. Hardy being harassed by a dishonest company. But the one that stood out for me involved Andy being accused of stealing a car...this and the resolution to it made no sense at all nor did Judge Hardy's reaction to it. Bizarre to say the least...though the rest of the film is the usual nice, wholesome sort of fair fans of the series have come to expect.

It's not surprising to discover that one of the teen movie genre's silliest plot devices, the Ugly Pretty Girl, was around even during Hollywood's Golden Age. The Ugly Pretty Girl usually involves taking some drop-dead gorgeous starlet and putting her in glasses, frumpy clothes, and an unbecoming hairstyle and then having all the other characters act like she is physically repulsive. Of course, as the movie progresses, the glasses come off and a new hairstyle and fashionable wardrobe allow everyone to "discover" that she's really a knock-out! The absurdity of this plot device is that despite the glasses, frumpy clothes and hair- it's ALWAYS obvious that the girl is beautiful!

I used to think that Rachel Leigh Cook in "She's All That" made the most absurd Ugly Pretty Girl. However, that opinion changed upon seeing "The Courtship of Andy Hardy." This movie is another moralistic episode of the small town lives of Judge Hardy and his family. Here Judge Hardy's son, Andy (Mickey Rooney), finds himself in trouble with the law when he is accused of stealing a car. (Yes, Andy Hardy is threatened with being charged with grand theft auto in a sub-plot that must be seen to be believed.) Andy turns to his dad for help, and Judge Hardy decides he will help Andy if Andy helps him.

Judge Hardy is overseeing a nasty custody/child support battle between a divorced couple who are using their only child, Melodie (Donna Reed), to attack one another. Judge Hardy sees that this is having a terrible effect on Melodie who has become a very withdrawn and bitter teen. The Judge knows that he can talk to the parents and get them to understand that their fighting is harming their daughter, but he wants Andy to show Melodie a good time in order to break through her loneliness and bitterness. It is here where the movie goes off the deep-end because Andy thinks Melodie is a "droop" and finds the idea of having to hang out with her to be a terrible burden.

The problem with that is that young Donna Reed (she can't be much older than 20 here) was a stunningly beautiful woman and this movie does virtually nothing to hide that fact except put her in a frumpy dress. (They don't even have her wearing glasses!) Yet we're supposed to believe that Andy and all his buddies find her unattractive. The scene were Andy is paying his friends to dance with her takes the Ugly Pretty Girl plot device into the realm of the surreal.

Overall, this an OK entry into the Andy Hardy series. However, it's notable only for its taking the Ugly Pretty Girl plot device to one of its more ludicrous pinnacles.

THE COURTSHIP OF ANDY HARDY (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1942), directed by George B. Seitz, marks the 12th installment to the popular "Judge Hardy's Family/Andy Hardy" series featuring series regulars of Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden, Sara Haden and Ann Rutherford. With the series success being more on star quality and family values, and sometimes an introduction to the screen of future major stars as Kathryn Grayson as ANDY HARDY'S PRIVATE SECRETARY (1941) or Esther Williams in ANDY HARDY'S DOUBLE LIFE (1942), THE COURTSHIP OF ANDY HARDY is a stepping ground for Donna Reed. Though not her introduction to the screen, having few prior movies roles since 1941, it would be her showcase for her as a troubled teenager caught in the middle of her parent's divorce custody.

Resuming its standard location to the small town of Carvel, the story opens traditionally in Judge Hardy's courtroom where the judge (Lewis Stone) is handling a maritial separation case for Roderick O. (Harvey Stephens) and Olivia Nesbit (Frieda Inescort), whose young daughter, Melodie (Donna Reed), known to high school students as a "droop," wants nothing to do with them, even confessing to the judge that even she hates her father, leading to the judge to look deeper into the case. Next plot development shifts to Hardy's son, Andrew (Mickey Rooney), a high school graduate now working at Pete Dugan's (Joseph Crehan) garage, using his jalopy to help a stranded visiting businessman, Stewart Willis (Steve Cornell), to toll his car to the garage for service, only to unwittingly lose his customer who later accuses him of stealing his auto, and file charges. This only after Andy gets a ticket from a policeman for driving his car without license plates. In the meantime, the family gets together at the train station welcoming home their eldest daughter, Marian (Cecilia Parker) following her trip to New York City, only to find her personality changed to big city girl with culture snubbing Carvel. She encounters Jefferson Willis (William Lundigan), a man-about-town, at the station, unaware of his serious boozing habits. While Aunt Milly (Sara Haden) has no problems to speak of, it's her sister, Emily (Fay Holden) who becomes involved in a mail-order swindle of $61.60 which she must pay or the collection agency will assume charges against her. As a favor for his father, Andy gets talked into taking the lonely and embittered Melodie out for a good time. While she actually knows of his intentions, Melodie becomes his date anyway at the high school alumni dance where Harry Land (Todd Karns) become interested in her, and being the only one among Andy's friends not to get paid for dancing with her. Further problems arise when Melodie overhears something to want to leave Carvel and parents altogether. Others in the cast include Erville Alderson (The Bailiff); Georgie Breakston ("Beezy" Anderson), Betty Wells (Susie), Floyd Schackelford (Joe) and Junior Coughlan ("Red"). Interestingly, series regular, Ann Rutherford as Polly Benedict, Andy's girlfriend, would only get a few minutes into the story while the sentence for drunk-driving Lundigan's character would actually get settled by the judge into the next installment, ANDY HARDY'S DOUBLE LIFE (1942).

Unlike the previous and very melodramatic effort of LIFE BEGINS FOR ANDY HARDY (1941), THE COURTSHIP OF ANDY HARDY resumes to formula material with some humor with enough individual plot situations for one movie for its 95 minutes. Aside from a 15 minute segment involving individual family members of Marion, Aunt Milly, Andy and Mrs. Hardy getting to converse their problems with the wise old judge in his den, and the judge getting adjusted to the more modern slang terms, Donna Reed gets her moment assuming the role of two basic characters, that of a homely quiet and unpopular girl who spends time alone listening to opera , to an attractive down-to-earth girl with dynamic personality. Reed and Mickey Rooney would share another movie together, THE HUMAN COMEDY (1943), though their scenes in that classic, and Rooney's best film, are limited.

Never distributed to home video, THE COURTSHIP OF ANDY HARDY often plays on cable television's Turner Classic Movies and available on DVD as part of the Andy Hardy collection for fans of the series. (**1/2)