This was the first of the Andy Hardy series, in which Mickey Rooney is the spry young man who croons about cars and is attracted to girls, although he doesn't understand them, or why he's attracted to them. Rooney seems not to walk. He darts from place to place, his skull spins on its axis, hair flopping from side to side. I'd love to have his adrenals.
This being fundamentally one of MGM's "happy family" movies -- nobody could foresee the myriad sequels -- Rooney is ranked fourth in the credits, and the pater familias is not the stolid Lewis Stone but the whiney-voiced and more expensive Lionel Barrymore. But this established the framework for the imitations that were to come. Today, it would be a pilot for a TV series.
Rooney actually doesn't have all that much screen time. He's attracted to a young girl whom he innocently offends, there is a rift in their relationship, and it's resolved at the end. Ditto for his sister and her boyfriend. Exciting car/truck chase on an unpaved mountain road.
The main plot thread involves community pressure being put by the citizens of Carvel on Judge Lionel Barrymore to permit the construction of an aqueduct that will mean lots of jobs for the town. (This is 1937, when jobs were very nice to come by.) Barrymore is a man of principle and insists on making his own judgment about the aqueduct. This earns him the disrespect of his neighbors and there is a great protest against him until, with an imaginary trumpet fanfare, he mounts the podium, waves the mob into silence, and finally explains why he opposes the construction.
The apologia takes him about three minutes which, had he spent that time doing the same thing ten minutes into the movie, there would have BEEN no movie.
But no matter. The audience applauds wildly, even his most determined adversaries. Judge Hardy wins the election, accepts the Nobel Prize with gratitude and humility, and is offered a long-term movie contract.
This being fundamentally one of MGM's "happy family" movies -- nobody could foresee the myriad sequels -- Rooney is ranked fourth in the credits, and the pater familias is not the stolid Lewis Stone but the whiney-voiced and more expensive Lionel Barrymore. But this established the framework for the imitations that were to come. Today, it would be a pilot for a TV series.
Rooney actually doesn't have all that much screen time. He's attracted to a young girl whom he innocently offends, there is a rift in their relationship, and it's resolved at the end. Ditto for his sister and her boyfriend. Exciting car/truck chase on an unpaved mountain road.
The main plot thread involves community pressure being put by the citizens of Carvel on Judge Lionel Barrymore to permit the construction of an aqueduct that will mean lots of jobs for the town. (This is 1937, when jobs were very nice to come by.) Barrymore is a man of principle and insists on making his own judgment about the aqueduct. This earns him the disrespect of his neighbors and there is a great protest against him until, with an imaginary trumpet fanfare, he mounts the podium, waves the mob into silence, and finally explains why he opposes the construction.
The apologia takes him about three minutes which, had he spent that time doing the same thing ten minutes into the movie, there would have BEEN no movie.
But no matter. The audience applauds wildly, even his most determined adversaries. Judge Hardy wins the election, accepts the Nobel Prize with gratitude and humility, and is offered a long-term movie contract.