Andy Hardy Comes Home

Like another person who commented, I feel this film leaves too many unanswered questions as to what happened in the years between 1947 and 1958. It was fun to see a few of the original characters (Fay Holden, as Mrs. Hardy, had aged very well!), but the original flavor of the Hardy series was completely lost. The film does come to a satisfying conclusion, however.

One comment regarding archive footage used in the film: I've seen it said repeatedly that the footage of Mickey and Judy was from "Love Finds Andy Hardy", when actually the footage was taken from "Babes in Arms" and adapted with "dubbed-over" names. The footage seems to indicate that Andy and Betsy Booth were more romantically involved than they were in the earlier Hardy films. However, Mickey and Judy are always a treat to watch, whatever the film clip.

Although this film provides some closure, it seems it was intended to begin a new generation of Andy Hardy films; thankfully, film makers left well enough alone after this entry.

In his autobiography, Mickey Rooney indicated he had high hopes for this movie but really hated what it turned out to be. He didn't say why, but I have to agree with his sentiments. It's a downer.

The Andy Hardy films of the '30s and '40s had an abundance of humor, or at least good humor. And a lot of the magic was the town of Carvel itself. It was an earlier version of TV's Mayberry -- a gentle, peaceful place that anyone would love to call home. In this movie, however, Carvel is a gloomy little backwater, left behind by postwar prosperity. You can't blame Andy for wanting to rescue it, even if his plan for accomplishing that is dubious.

If you're an Andy Hardy fan, you'll want to see this film out of a certain kind of loyalty. But don't expect it to be fun.

This movie hails from a time when MGM had fallen on hard times and was looking to relive it's glory days of the 30's and 40's by creating new versions of it's classic films. The Andy Hardy series was the role of Mickey Rooney's career. This film was a nice effort. A shame Lewis Stone who played Judge Hardy passed away in 1953, his absence really hurt this 1958 remake. Ann Rutherford's absence as Andy's old love Polly Benedict also hurt this film. This is strictly a trip down memory lane movie for old Andy Hardy fans. The problem is it is rarely shown. I saw it last one Saturday in 1987 and have not seen it since. Turner Classic Movies which owns the series does show the older Andy Hardy movies but not this one.

As a way to tie up the loose ends of the series this average entry is a passable movie but the old spark is gone. Easy to see why this was the final film of the run.

The clips hearkening back to previous Hardy adventures (really just an excuse to remind the viewer that Judy Garland, Lana Turner and Esther Williams had appeared in the films) only emphasizes how modest this one is. Nothing against the actress who plays Andy's wife but it is too bad that they couldn't convince Ann Rutherford to return as Polly Benedict as Mrs. Hardy which any fan of the series expected.

For series fans a nice piece of nostalgia but that's about it.

I finally managed to watch this movie. I had seen every other movie in the Hardy family series and this would, fittingly I thought, close out the series for me.

I must admit I was disappointed in the movie. Perhaps I missed it, but I thought that a little more background should have been provided. There were a few people that were noticeably absent, particularly Andy's father, James Hardy (Lewis Stone). His long-time flame, Polly Benedict (played by Ann Rutherford) was also given little mention beyond seeing her in a clip and seeing her picture.

The Hardy movies made me feel like a part of the family. However in the 12 years since the previous film a lot had obviously happened and there was little or no recap. How did Judge Hardy die? What happened to Marion's husband? How did Marion and Jimmy come to live in the Hardy house? Where was Polly Benedict?

To me the movie seemed to not know whether to stand on its own or to be simply a nostalgia picture. It tries to capitalize on the past movies but is content to introduce several major new characters with little or no explanation. I would have loved to know where he'd met Jane, or how he came to go to California. A theme that seemed to run through the movie was Andy turning into his father: he is asked by his son for "a man to man talk", Andy doesn't understand the new "buzzwords" of his nephew Jimmy's generation. Andy is now a part of the awkward older generation.

I suspect that this movie was intended to relaunch Mickey Rooney's career. That is only my guess, however at the conclusion the words "To Be Continued" seemed pretty obvious that there were to be additional sequels - sequels never made. I imagine when this movie came out movie audiences no longer felt the chemistry that had existed with the original Hardy family. Andy had been the main focus of most of the earlier Hardy movies but now he was the anachronism. He was no longer an idol for younger, hipper audiences. At the same time the supporting cast wasn't up to carrying the lead. Like so many remakes that never really re-capture the magic of the original, Andy Hardy Comes Home just made me appreciate that the producers had been able to capture magic in a bottle in the original movies.

In short, this is the last movie in the series. It doesn't completely close out the series and leaves a lot of questions unanswered, however for Hardy fans, it is still a film worth seeking out. It will make the original movies all that much more special.