Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble is a surprisingly long film starring Mickey Rooney as a kid going to college. The woman he likes (Bonita Granville) prefers Herbert Marshall, the college dean, to Mickey Rooney. And no wonder - Rooney is 24 in this film but looks and sounds about 14, and Granville is 21 and is styled to look like she's in her mid 30s. In the first scene I thought the "twist" was going to be that she was a professor rather than a student.
As a result, visually, a Marshall-Granville romance is significantly more credible than a Rooney-Granville one, even though Marshall was 54. (The fact that he's the college dean and she is a freshman student never appears to be the slightest issue. Nor the fact that he's sleeping on the berth above her during the longest train journey since the Orient Express got stuck in the snow with a corpse).
Had they axed the rather contrived side plot about two identical blonde twins rinsing Rooney for cash, they could have made a shorter and tighter movie. Plus all the family scenes with Rooney's father could easily have been swept away on the cutting room floor. But this film is part of a series of Hardy family films, which I suppose is why they're in there.
There is one very touching scene with a Brooklyn-born Chinese American doctor, in dialogue very compelling for the 1940s (and even so today) he introduces himself with: "Oh I see you're wondering about my nationality. I'm Chinese, and I have a charming disposition, until someone pulls that old crack about 'Confucius say'. At which I go completely berserk and bite little children. Now let's have a look at that throat." Plus ça change, eight decades later.
I would recommend this film as a curiosity, and to fans of any specific actors in it. The twins can apparently sing, so it's rather a shame we don't get more of that.
As a result, visually, a Marshall-Granville romance is significantly more credible than a Rooney-Granville one, even though Marshall was 54. (The fact that he's the college dean and she is a freshman student never appears to be the slightest issue. Nor the fact that he's sleeping on the berth above her during the longest train journey since the Orient Express got stuck in the snow with a corpse).
Had they axed the rather contrived side plot about two identical blonde twins rinsing Rooney for cash, they could have made a shorter and tighter movie. Plus all the family scenes with Rooney's father could easily have been swept away on the cutting room floor. But this film is part of a series of Hardy family films, which I suppose is why they're in there.
There is one very touching scene with a Brooklyn-born Chinese American doctor, in dialogue very compelling for the 1940s (and even so today) he introduces himself with: "Oh I see you're wondering about my nationality. I'm Chinese, and I have a charming disposition, until someone pulls that old crack about 'Confucius say'. At which I go completely berserk and bite little children. Now let's have a look at that throat." Plus ça change, eight decades later.
I would recommend this film as a curiosity, and to fans of any specific actors in it. The twins can apparently sing, so it's rather a shame we don't get more of that.