Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble (1944)
** (out of 4)
Overlong, boring and overall disappointing fourteenth entry in the series finds Andy (Mickey Rooney) going to college at Wainright. On the train ride there he meets a woman (Bonita Granville) who is more mature than him and feels that Andy needs to grow up. Also on the train are a couple twins (Lee and Lyn Wilde) who Andy ends up helping. Back in Carver, the rest of the Hardy clan must try and come to terms with Andy being gone. At 107-minutes, this entry runs a good thirty-minutes too long but I'm going to guess part of the blame is on the pre-production. Originally this was meant to be a Rooney-less entry as the star was fighting in WWII so the studio did a screenplay without him. I'm going to guess that the stuff here dealing with the Hardy family on their own was from it and the stuff with Andy was added after he returned. The first thirty-minutes here were actually pretty good as Rooney and Granville had some nice chemistry and their relationship was an interesting one. I thought we also got some funny moments with the twins and a running joke of one constantly flirting with Andy while the other slaps him around; poor Andy not realizing they are twins. We even have another interesting subplot involving an older doctor (Herbert Marshall) and his questionable dealings with Granville. What doesn't work is when they finally arrive at college and things just get stretched out. The screenplay goes in so many directions that it's just downright silly, naive and in the end very boring. Things back in Carver aren't any better as the running joke comes from a Chinese doctor (Keye Luke) filling in for a sick doctor and everyone being shocked that he is a doctor due to his race. We see Judge (Lewis Stone) deal with a sore throat as well as a few more stories involving the broken down car that Andy started selling in the previous film, ANDY HARDY'S DOUBLE LIFE. It goes without saying that the entire cast is good and once again it was a real pleasure seeing Granville, best remembered for her Nancy Drew roles at Warner. The cast is certainly up to a high level but it's a shame the screenplay didn't try to do more.
