The Picture Show Annual (1943)

bigger prices for a seat in a cinema to-day we are getting far more entertainment for our money than we did even in the old days. But what is a rather striking thought is that the series—a development of the serial—is still one of the most popular forms of cinema entertainment to-day. And the Westerns (new style but still Westerns) are still as big an attraction as they were in the early days of the pictures when they supplied nearly all the serials and also complete film plays. The series has one advantage over the serial. Being complete in each picture it does not matter if one is missed now and again, whereas in the days when serials were a regular feature of the cinema, it would have been most annoying to have missed an “ episode ” (which was the film name for chapter). GROWING UP WITH ANDY HARDY One of the big pulls that a series has on its admirers is that the audience sort of grow up with the principal characters. We get to know them like we know our friends, and their troubles and joys are shared by us. We get to feel they are something more than film actors and that the characters they represent are real people. That is why it is important that the principal characters should be played by the same actors and actresses right through the series, so far as possible. What we might call visiting characters may be played by any competent player, for they may not appear more than once or twice in the series. This has been the case in the Hardy Family series. Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy; Lewis Stone as the father. Judge Hardy; Fay Holden as Mrs. Hardy; and Ann Rutherford as Polly Bene- dict, Andy’s ever-faithful sweet- The Bumstead Family of the “ Blondie ’’ series—Arthur Lake as Dogwood, Penny Singleton as Blondie, Larry Simms as Baby Dumpling, Danny Mummert as Alvin Fuddle, and Daisy, in “ Blondie Coes to College .’’ The Hardy Family—above, Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy, with Ann Rutherford as his sweetheart, Polly Benedict ; on the left, Lewis Stone as fudge Hardy and Fay Holden as Mrs. Hardy. heart, have been together in practically all the series. Mickey Rooney has literally grown up before our eyes in the character of Andy, for we have seen him develop from a school- boy into a young fellow earn- ing his own living, while in real life he has grown up from being a boy to a married man. In his boyish escapades Andy had many girl sweethearts, who, for a time, completely held his affec- tions and usually got him into debt because he hired cars on the instalment system in order to impress the girl of the mo- ment But in each episode Andy was none the worse except for a few dents in his vanity, and invariably he learned some common-sense lesson. I think the big pull that Mickey Rooney had on many audiences in America and this country was that as Andy Hardy he was a very human hoy. There was nothing of the prig about him nor anything of the boy who is too good to be real. He had his faults—hundreds of them, but they were natural faults, and Andy was always willing to pay the price for his debts. And he was lucky to get such a film father as Lewis Stone. I can’t think of another actor who could have played this role so well. Fay Holden and Ann Rutherford were always good and the result was that we got a Hardy family that was real and natural, the sort who make good neigh- bours and stalwart friends. I don’t think any series stands much 102