Harrison's Reports (1946)

December 7, 1946 HARRISON'S REPORTS 195 "Love Laughs at Andy Hardy" with Mickey Rooney and Bonita Granville (MGM, no release date set; time, 93 win.) Typical of the other pictures in the Hardy family series, with the same players portraying the different characters, this latest one is a good family entertainment and should give satisfaction where the previous ones have gone over. The story is lightweight, but it has human appeal and provides situations that are quite comical. A bit older but buoyant as ever, Mickey Rooney romps through his part as Andy Hardy in a manner that will cause audiences to chuckle with delight. An extremely funny sequence is the one in which he unwittingly finds himself escorting a girl over six feet tall to a college dance, then teaming up with her in an hilarious jitterbug dance routine. Although the plot is concerned primarily with Mickey's romantic pursuits, there is considerable appeal in the relationship between his parents and himself. Two songs by Lina Romay are worked into the plot without retarding the action: — Honorably discharged from the Army, Rooney returns home eager to resume his studies at college, but even more eager to take up again his pre-war romance with Bonita Granville, a co-ed. He informs his parents (Lewis Stone and Fay Holden) of his plans to become a lawyer and to wed Bonita, whom they had never met. At college, Rooney soon gets into the swing of campus life and looks forward to a class reunion dance, which his parents planned to attend, in order that he might present Bonita to them. On the night of the dance, however, Bonita finds it necessary to return home, and Rooney, through a series of odd circumstances, finds himself escorting to the dance Dorothy Ford, a girl twice his height. His parents become flabbergasted at his choice of a future wife, but Rooney soon assures them that she was not Bonita. When Bonita returns, she informs Rooney that she was about to marry Dick Simmons, .her guardian. Heartbroken but gallant, Rooney acts as best man at her wedding. Her marriage, however, is such a blow that he gives up his studies, returns home, and lays plans to go to South America to forget. Stone, aware that his son was under an emotional strain, reasons with him and soon makes him see the folly of giving up his college education. When Rooney begins to console himself with Lina Romay, a pretty singer and close friend of the family, his parents assure themselves that he had returned to a normal way of life. Harry Ruskin and William Ludwig wrote the screen play from a story by Howard Dimsdale. Robert Sisk produced it, and Willis Goldbeck directed it. The cast includes Sara Haden, Hal Hackett, Addison Richards and others. Morally suitable for all. ZANUCK COMES TO THE DEFENSE OF THE INDUSTRY Sam Goldwyn's recent statement about what is wrong with Hollywood has created a furore within and without our industry. Newspaper editors and columnists have pounced on Goldwyn's critical pronouncements and have used them as a springboard to leap on Hollywood in a denouncement that included charges of domination by communistic in' fluences, and generalizations to the effect that Hollywood's name "has become symbolic in American life for social evil." Taking issue with Goldwyn without naming him, Darryl F. Zanuck, 20th Century-Fox production head, had this to say in a letter to the Los Angeles Times, which was published in the December 2 issue of that paper: "Last week The Times in concert with the press of the United States and the world, broadcast the tirade of a Hollywood producer against our country's film production, and a few days later the cables from Britain flashed back the utterances of a couple of English members of Parliament denouncing those 'cheap and nasty Hollywood pictures.' "Once again the law of cause and effect has been demonstrated. "That the motive of the Hollywood producer may have been insincere and based on a desire for personal publicity is of secondary importance. "The real injustice and danger of such statements are the harm they do not only to the prestige of the American motion picture industry but to the prestige of our entire nation abroad. "Whenever the enemies of the American way of life and our system of free enterprise want to poison the foreign public against us they seize most avidly upon the statements made by critics within our own borders. And when our own critics make their statements irresponsibly and, in this case in the face of facts which establish that Hollywood in the last year has made more good pictures than ever before, their criticism is nothing less than betrayal. "When our own people condemn us our enemies have only to quote them and the people in foreign lands have little reason to doubt that our products, and inferentially therefore our system and way of life, are inferior. When a Hollywood producer tells the world that our pictures are inferior the exhibitors and the public in other countries must be inclined to believe him and their desire to see our pictures must suffer. Their confidence in American leadership also must decline. "Hollywood producers were the first to welcome, herald and encourage the progress made recently by British film producers. Our companies distribute their products in our theatres, place the full force of our publicity organizations behind the effort to popularize their pictures with the American public. We gladly send our stars across to further enhance the popularity of British pictures. We welcome the competition which improvement of British product gives us. "We do not 'knock' British pictures. Similarly the British should not 'knock' us. But above all, our own Hollywood producers should not belittle us to the public even if, contrary to the fact, there were validity to their criticism. We have a producers' association to which our producercritics themselves belong, and if there are changes to be made or constructive criticism to be offered, the association meetings provide a forum for frank and honest discussion of these views. "I have never heard U.S. Steel officials giving prepared statements to the press in disparagement of Bethlehem Steel, nor the leaders in any other industry attacking their competitors in such a manner. "Hollywood can well be proud of its record, on the whole, as a self-regulating industry. It can exult in its many war contributions. It can be proud of its progressiveness. It can take equal pride in its fine accomplishments in entertainment and enlightenment. And, of no less importance, it can be proud of its world leadership in motion picture production." Although this paper agrees with Goldwyn that Hollywood is badly in need of fresh ideas because, with few exceptions, most pictures remind you of a hundred other pictures, there is no question that Zanuck is right in maintaining that such criticism should have been confined within the borders of the industry. A man oi Goldwyn's experience and standing should know th.it any public statement he may make regarding the quality of motion pictures, especially when it tends to disparage the rest of the industry, will receive instant and wide attention, and is bound to prove detrimental to the picture business in general, and to the exhibitors' box-offices in particular. When the newspapers comment editorially on the poor quality of pictures, and give as their source of information no less than one of Hollywood's outstanding producers, no one can blame the public for staying away from the theatres. The exhibitor, of course, is the ultimate sufferer. It is high time that Goldwyn learned to keep his criticisms of the picture business within the confines of the industry, where all who know him may accept his remarks for what they are worth.