Love Finds Andy Hardy

Mickey Rooney was the biggest box office star of the late '30s and '40s, and much of that is attributable to his role as Andy Hardy in a series of 15 films. It all started in a film called A Family Affair, about the family of the kindly and wise Judge Stone, but like Fonzie in Happy Days, Rooney's irrepressible Andy soon came to the fore, and in the third picture, from 1938, Love Finds Andy Hardy, he was the undisputed star.

Today the film is extremely quaint, but in a pleasurable way, like looking at the yellowing snapshots in an old photo album. It's a time capsule of a much more simple era, idealized, of course. The conflict is over who Andy takes to the Christmas dance and whether he can scrounge up enough money ($8) to buy a used car.

In this installment, Andy, who is about sixteen, finds himself juggling three different girls. His steady girl, Polly (Anne Rutherford) is visiting her grandparents over the holiday. Rooney's pal also has to leave town, so he agrees to pay him the money he needs to take out his girl (Lana Turner), to keep other boys at bay. Meanwhile, the girl next door (Judy Garland) has a crush on Andy, and maneuvers so he will take her to the dance.

It's all inoffensive fun, and Rooney, who was a kind of genius at this, shines. He's like a bantam rooster, strutting his way through the action, barely able to keep still, a flood of words at the ready. The rest of the cast pales in his wake, although Garland, pre-Wizard of Oz, shows her incredible appeal playing the dowdy kid.

A few things made me laugh out loud, such as when Rooney tells his father (Lewis Stone, looking way too old to be a father of teenagers) to get with the times. "It's 1938!" Or when Stone says about telegrams, "They're here to stay!" A big scene has Stone and Rooney getting help from a neighbor kid in sending a message via ham radio, and Stone is so impressed. "I never though I'd see the day," he says. I wonder what he would think of Skype?