The last Hardy movie before Mickey Rooney went off to war. Like most of the previous Hardy movies, it takes off immediately where the previous on ends – indeed, it even reprises the end of the last film, with Andy discovering that his college isn’t co-ed from a female student. That’s because the female student is here played by a different actor – Bonita Granville, who is Andy’s love interest, though she’s clearly far too sensible, mature and smart for him. It’s clear she’s got more in common with Herbert Marshall. The scriptwriters throw in a subplot about two blonde twins pretending to be the one person so they can go to college.
The Hardy family series get a bit multicultural in this one with a decent non-white role model: a Chinese doctor (Keye Luke). (There have been several black characters, but all servants, porters, etc). But to be honest a lot of this isn’t that enjoyable – Andy being confused by the relationship between Granville and Herbert Marshall, and being fleeced by the twins; the first half of this film almost entirely consists of Andy being bewildered, a passive rather than active participant; Judge Hardy can’t talk because he’s got tonsillitis, we spend all this time on a romance between Marshall and Granville – why would we care? We don’t know these people? It’s just dodgy because there is a thirty year age gap (Falling in love with a teacher would have been a great Marian story – but she’s not in the film.) Granville never seems that into Andy. Actually they have nil chemistry – so at the end when we’re meant to believe Andy has fallen in love with her we don’t believe it for a second.
There are some bright moments between Andy and the twins, such as when Andy impersonates Marshall on the phone. But it’s not enough. There’s no reason why we couldn’t have followed Andy into college. There were a bunch of college movies made in the 30s, he could have fallen in love, had adventures, they could have figured out a way to get his parents involved. But this is a lousy movie.
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