Hoosier Schoolboy

Hoosier Schoolboy was obviously a title that Monogram Pictures dreamed up to get people into the movie theater thinking they were seeing some Booth Tarkington piece of nostalgia. What the film is about is a paralyzing milk strike that's affecting a small Indiana town. William Gould is the owner of a dairy that's the chief employer in the town and he's squeezing the dairy farmers. They in turn have unionized.

That's the background for the story involving Mickey Rooney as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who lives with his shell shocked father from the First World War, Edward Pawley. He's constantly picked on because of his father until newly assigned teacher Anne Nagel takes an interest in him. She also has an interest in Gould's son Frank Shields.

It's not Tarkington flavored Hoosier nostalgia, but Hoosier Schoolboy is the kind of working class drama done far better at Warner Brothers. No reflection on Mickey Rooney who just left us and gives a fine performance. But I'm sure he missed the trappings of MGM.

"This easygoing rural drama stars Mickey Rooney as a young boy who idolizes his father, a shell-shocked alcoholic war veteran. The boy must protect his dad against the recriminations of the townsfolk," according to the DVD sleeve, "An understanding schoolteacher comes along to rescue Rooney and his father from a life of poverty." She arrives in the Indiana town in the middle of a milk farmer's strike.

In his last really low-budget (ie Monogram) feature before super-stardom, Mr. Rooney is refreshingly natural and scrappy as the typical "bad boy" saved by a good-natured soul. That role is supplied by sweet, pretty history teacher Anne Nagel (as Mary Evans). Her tentative romance with handsome Frank Shields (Brooke Shield's tennis pro grandfather) and the strikers' subplot tie the storyline together neatly.

***** Hoosier Schoolboy (7/7/37) William Nigh ~ Mickey Rooney, Anne Nagel, Frank Shields, Edward Pawley

Nne Nagel takes up her post as history teacher in the school to find a town divided by a strike. The local dairy farmers can't get a fair price for their milk from dairy owner William Gould. He's losing money trucking in milk from other locations. As the strikers start to grow violent, Miss Nagel has to deal with Gould's well-meaning son, Frank Shields Sr. She also has a problem student in Mickey Rooney. His father, Edward Pawley, won the Congressional Medal of Honor in the Great War, but has turned into a layabout drunk. Rooney uses his fists to quiet snickering about his old man.

Director William Nigh has to contend with a script that is telegraphic in its story telling. Nonetheless, he gets some fine performances, including that of Rooney, who would play a more extreme redemptive character in the following year's Boys Town Between the supporting players, including Harry Hayden, Doris Rankin, and Fred Kelsey -- for once, not playing a cop! -- there are fine moments in this movie that more than make up for its brusque plotting.

Mickey Rooney was one of the most capable actors Hollywood was lucky enough to have. Ever. But he too often needed a stronger director to hold him back.

Some of his best performances were given during his younger years. He could just walk into a scene and, even without saying a word, steal it all.

Unfortunately, too often he was over the top, as in "Boys Town," where his character's little shadow has been struck by a car on the highway. Mick's character picks up the injured boy and very dramatically shakes the youngster.

Well, if the boy had managed to survive the auto's strike, being handled like that would have killed him.

Bad moves by the director and by Rooney.

In "Hoosier Schoolboy," however, he and director William Nigh create a perfect picture of a strong character thwarted and defensive because of a drunken father who is constantly derided by the rest of the town.

The script is slightly flawed in that certain characters change too quickly. Maybe the barely one-hour running time didn't give the company enough time for all characters to become fully fleshed out.

"Jack," played by the unknown-to-me Frank Shields, of a marvelous voice, seems believable, as written and as played, the spoiled rich kid who grows and matures because of his interest in the new teacher.

Anne Nagel plays the teacher as a strong and caring person and she too is quite believable. (She was always so completely in control of her character, so perfectly at ease in front of a camera, I wonder why she is not better known today.)

In fact, all the performances are as close to perfect as one could want or expect, and the directing, photography, and editing are too. Only that small script problem mars this excellent movie.

These stories of economic conflict coupled with a veteran's mental problems from the war are still relevant. Unfortunately, as long as we have governments and their component politicians and bureaucrats, these kinds of conflicts and problems will probably always be with us. Needlessly.

I foolishly think mostly of Westerns when I think of Monogram, but "Hoosier Schoolboy," other than its pointless generic title, is a superlative example of small-budget drama,

I can't recommend it strongly enough. And it's available for viewing at YouTube. I hope you go watch.

Mickey Rooney headlines this Monogram quickie made just months after filming the first entry in his wildly successful Andy Hardy series at MGM (A Family Affair), a showcase that would make him Hollywood's #1 box office draw. Don't be fooled by Hoosier's low-budget feel for it's a pleaser, Mick playing his trademark troubled teen who, if Shockey can catch a break, will turn a new leaf. The divine Anne Nagel whose passing star should've risen as high as Rooney's, impresses as the town's new teacher, arriving during a labor dispute and a template of sorts for Tracy's Father Flanagan, while her romantic interest is cast by tennis star, Frank Shields. The film is noteworthy for 1) how love inspires, and 2) an early treatment of PTSD exhibited by Shockey's dad (Pawley) after heroics earning him the Medal of Honor. Short (62m) but engaging and illuminating, yet, a movie mostly forgotten (3/4).