There's too much going on in this entry of the Hardy family series, and it's obvious that the studio was running out of ideas, perhaps due to the war going on. Since 1937, there had been at least two Hardy pictures every year, and there wouldn't be any in 1943, only one in 1944 and none until 1946, the end of the series until the reunion in 1958.
Once again, this is a screen test for a hopeful star, Esther Williams, swimming briefly with Mickey in one scene, playing the college aged cousin of Andy's now ex-girlfriend Polly (Ann Rutherford in her last of the series), and she's involved in a rather strange storyline. It appears that Polly and cousin Susan are in cahoots to teach Andy a lesson for some reason, and while Andy's trying to end things with Polly on a friendly level the way she acts towards him confuses him, and Susan flirts with him as well. At one point, he finds himself thinking he's engaged to both.
In the opening scene, Andy's trying to sell his beaten up jalopy to his friends for $20, making smart audience members confused because he got a new car at his high school graduation. There's also more of a storyline for Marion Hardy (Cecilia Parker) involving her boyfriend who seems to have a problem with drunk driving. This is the first film where her and Andy become close, concerned over supposed memory issues of their parents, and confiding various issues to each other. Marion even offers Andy sensible advice how to deal with the machinations of the opposite sex.
So in short, this entry in the series is a mess, a tangled web of various soap opera like plots that really lead the story nowhere. Williams, playing a psychology student, doesn't really need to act here other than just look glamorous, and certainly she has the charm as evidenced here to make it as a star in bigger projects. Another MGM ingenue, Susan Peters, who received an Oscar nomination this year for "Random Harvest", has a smaller part. Then there's a storyline involving Bobby Blake (later Robert) and his financially troubled mother, an accident case in Judge Hardy's court.
It's unfortunate that the storyline involving Rutherford (described by her own characters father as being extremely difficult when she doesn't get her own way) and Williams (overloaded with psychological mumbo jumbo) is rather badly written, but fortunately, Parker's storyline shows her as having grown up and gotten over the somewhat snotty personality she often had in earlier films. This was trying too hard to be intelligent which only proves it to be the opposite. The MGM glamour saves this from being a total dud, but it's my least favorite of the Hardy films.
Once again, this is a screen test for a hopeful star, Esther Williams, swimming briefly with Mickey in one scene, playing the college aged cousin of Andy's now ex-girlfriend Polly (Ann Rutherford in her last of the series), and she's involved in a rather strange storyline. It appears that Polly and cousin Susan are in cahoots to teach Andy a lesson for some reason, and while Andy's trying to end things with Polly on a friendly level the way she acts towards him confuses him, and Susan flirts with him as well. At one point, he finds himself thinking he's engaged to both.
In the opening scene, Andy's trying to sell his beaten up jalopy to his friends for $20, making smart audience members confused because he got a new car at his high school graduation. There's also more of a storyline for Marion Hardy (Cecilia Parker) involving her boyfriend who seems to have a problem with drunk driving. This is the first film where her and Andy become close, concerned over supposed memory issues of their parents, and confiding various issues to each other. Marion even offers Andy sensible advice how to deal with the machinations of the opposite sex.
So in short, this entry in the series is a mess, a tangled web of various soap opera like plots that really lead the story nowhere. Williams, playing a psychology student, doesn't really need to act here other than just look glamorous, and certainly she has the charm as evidenced here to make it as a star in bigger projects. Another MGM ingenue, Susan Peters, who received an Oscar nomination this year for "Random Harvest", has a smaller part. Then there's a storyline involving Bobby Blake (later Robert) and his financially troubled mother, an accident case in Judge Hardy's court.
It's unfortunate that the storyline involving Rutherford (described by her own characters father as being extremely difficult when she doesn't get her own way) and Williams (overloaded with psychological mumbo jumbo) is rather badly written, but fortunately, Parker's storyline shows her as having grown up and gotten over the somewhat snotty personality she often had in earlier films. This was trying too hard to be intelligent which only proves it to be the opposite. The MGM glamour saves this from being a total dud, but it's my least favorite of the Hardy films.