A combination of declining box office receipts and the increase in troubles dealing with Mickey Rooney saw MGM cancel the Hardy family series – until it was revived 12 years later. But then Lewis Stone had gone to the great character actor waiting list in the sky, but Rooney, Fay Holden, Sara Haden and Cecilia Parker were still around. (The also bring back Andy’s mate Breezy, but I think he’s played by a different actor.) It’s a jolt to see an aged Rooney and Parker but you get used to it.
Andy has two kids – who he’s called Andy and Marian. He works for a company in LA which he’s persuaded that Carvel is a good place to manufacture missile plants. In the course of doing so he runs into some local corruption, which we haven’t really seen since A Family Affair. Johnny Weissmuller Jnr plays Parker’s son, called Jim (presumably she married drink driver Jim). Andy’s kids and wife arrive – it turns out he’s married a woman as bland and undemanding as his mother. At the end he’s appointed a judge and there’s an end title “to be continued”… but there were no more Andy Hardy films.
This movie falls between a lot of stools. It aims for nostalgia, including three flashback clips (one within the first three minutes) of the best known Hardy girls, Judy Garland, Esther Williams and Lana Turner – but the Judy Garland clip is from Babes in Arms, not any Andy Hardy movie, which is cheating. There’s no plot involving any of the old regulars, except for Breezy – who was never really much of a regular, and is played by a different actor. They don’t mention Polly Benedict, which is inexcusable, or say what happened to Marian (was she married? What happened to her husband?). They don’t even use the old theme music.
It also aims to be an old style Hardy family movie – but there’s only the land development and corruption plot, which is a little thin by itself; they seem to forget these were usually the B plots, with Andy and Marian’s romances carrying the bulk of the story. So the script is light on.
Finally, the film seems to aim for the teen audience by including the Weissmuller Jnr character and his mates – but they aren’t given a subplot either, he and his mates just hang around and are impressed by Andy’s ordering a big meal (he’s a middle aged man – cholesterol), knowing cars and his old records. Yeah, right.
Having said that, Hardy fans will enjoy the movie, if only for completism sake, and at least none if it is bad natured like some of the others.
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