Hoosier Schoolboy

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.

"Hoosier Schoolboy" is a film most notable because it stars Mickey Rooney. Although he would soon gain great fame with MGM, this was made for the ultra-low budget studio Monogram--and it shows. While the film has some very nice elements, it also seems incredibly rushed and falls a bit flat. Even for a B-movie, it's a bit underwhelming--though some of the acting is nice.

The film has several different plots--and they all center on some crappy little town. One plot involves the owner of the dairy. He's a real jerk and has decided to put the local dairy farmers out of business-- even if it costs him a fortune. Eventually his son joins forces with the farmers, as he's come to realize that his father is a jerk. There's also the new school teacher who has taken a real liking to a kid that others on the faculty think is bad news (Rooney) and she reforms him. And, then there's the father of the boy--a drunk who won the Medal of Honor. And, there's the bratty son of the dairy owner...in fact, there are SO many plots that they never really seem resolved when the movie very abruptly ends. It's a shame, as if the film was about 30 minutes longer, this all could have worked out well--as is, the film, at the end, was frustrating despite having a lot of good story elements and acting.

Highly Expert. (Five years could make a lot of difference back then!) Not a speck or instant of misplaced egg. Hokeyness is strictly avoided in spite of the emotional content - the kind of role, I assume, that made Rooney famous. The action moves smoothly, seamlessly, generating tension and resolution along realistic lines. Protagonist Shocky's school oppressors are ra-THER politically IN-correct. That would never go over today.

This is a decent low-budget drama with some interesting themes, and it also includes solid performances by Anne Nagel and a young Mickey Rooney. It ties together several plot lines in a way that works rather well, and although most of the characters remain one-dimensional, the overall situation is interesting enough to hold your attention.

Nagel plays a strong but sensitive schoolteacher who arrives in a new town just as feelings are running high due to a strike by the local dairy farmers, who aren't getting the price they want for their cows' milk. Rooney plays one of the students, a cynical outcast with a father who is a shell-shocked former war hero. These issues would probably have struck a chord in a 1930s audience, and to some degree the ideas are still of some relevance now.

The story that develops moves a little unevenly, and eventually it gets a little predictable, which keeps it from being a better movie overall. But it never loses your interest, and it's not bad at all for such an inexpensively-made feature.

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).