Andy Hardy Comes Home

I don't think I've actually blogged about any of the Andy Hardy movies before. They were incredibly popular for about a decade from 1936 to 1946, and with World War II having ended, tastes changed. A further decade after that, however, MGM decided to bring Mickey Rooney back for one more movie, Andy Hardy Comes Home.

Andy, having grown up finally, has become a lawyer out in California. But he's taking an airplane back to his hometown of Carvel where he has some business. For some reason, he even has his high school yearbook with him on the plane, which is really just an excuse to show a clip from one of the early Andy Hardy movies. Andy gets home to Carvel, and Mom (Fay Holden) and Aunt Milly (Sara Haden) are both thrilled to see him. Dad, of course, is no longer there, Lewis Stone having died five years before the movie was made.

Andy is a lawyer for one of the big defense firms that had sprung up in land-rich California during the war, and the one he works for is planning to expand by opening a factory to make electronics for missile systems or somesuch. Carvel is a small town stuck in the past, and Andy is convinced that a big factory like this would revive the town's fortunes. And since he's originally from the town, his support of the new plant should make things easier.

Andy goes to City Hall to look through the property maps to find a suitable plot to put the factory on. Eventually he does find a plot, owned by relative newcomer to Carvel Thomas Chandler (Vaughn Taylor). Andy goes to see Chandler, and the two are able to come to a verbal agreement on the price of the land. But after a night's thought, Chandler decides he's going to gouge Hardy, since they don't have any signatures yet.

One of Andy's old friends, Beezy, finds out from Andy what's going on, and has a whole bunch of land sitting unused that would be perfect for the factory. He even offers to sell Andy enough to build the factory, and asks for a price that's less than Andy had offered to Chandler in the first place! Chandler is pissed, and when he's at the meeting of one of those service organizations small towns back in those days had, another member who got the wrong impression about his wife and Andy gives Chandler the idea to change the zoning on Beezy's land so that they won't be able to build a factory there.

The amazing thing is that Andy goes to the town council, says more or less, "Don't you know who my father was?", and that's enough to get the council to vote down the rezoning proposal. If that's not enough, the town fathers immediately name Andy the local judge!

Andy Hardy Comes Home is a bit of a mess, in part because it doesn't go far enough in being a nostalgia picture. I'm assuming MGM couldn't get Judy Garland to reprise her role, which is why we only get her in one clip. I don't think we get Ann Rutherford as Polly at all, not even in clips. And much of the movie seems tired, such as the thoroughly phony soda shop scene. Once again, the kids dance to the sort of bland instrumental music that we just saw college kids dance to in Get Yourself a College Girl. (There is, however, one fun clip of the late 50s teens listening to Andy's old 78s. Can you believe the music they listened to back in the day?) Finally, the movie ends with a big "To Be Continued...." plastered on the screen. A blatant attempt at a cash grab that thankfully didn't happen.

Andy Hardy Comes Home is interesting to watch if only to see what a misfire it is. But if you want to see why the Andy Hardy series was such a big hit back in the day, watch some of the originals.