They never really mentioned the war in Andy Hardy films, even after Pearl Harbour, and it was a bit odd he went off the college without enlisting, but here we have Andy Hardy coming out of the army (just like Mickey Rooney). He goes back to college, where he’s still a freshman, and doesn’t seem to have been too affected by the army experience. He intends to marry Bonita Granville from the previous film, seemingly oblivious to her lack of feelings for him in that previous film – and the fact she flirted with Herbert Marshall. She’s clearly fond of Andy but has a taste for older guys – in fact she wants to get married to her 36 year old guardian. Yuck!
The first half of this is a bit erratic and uncertain, not sure how to pitch a post-army Andy. (NB Mickey Rooney looks young without a hat but when he’s wearing it he appears middle aged). But then it starts to hit its stride. There’s a really sweet subplot where Andy agrees to take a massively tall girl to a dance, and it’s quite moving when Andy has to watch the girl of his dreams get married to another man. And Judge and Andy have one of their best man to man talks at the end when Andy wants to run off to South American and become an engineer (although Andy has never really expressed a genuine desire to be a lawyer – he always seemed simply to assume that he’d be one).
Andy’s second love interest is a South American character – heralding the south of the border kick that MGM went on after the war (with Ricardo Montalban, Fernando Lamas, etc.) Love that portrait of George Washington in the Hardy family house.
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