THE HARDY FAMILY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1940, Page 9

THE HARDY FAMILY

AN AVERAGE U.S.A. HOUSEHOLD. The third anniversary of the Hardy family, celebrated by release of "Andy Hardy Meets Debutante," draws attention to one of Hollywood’s most rol rnantic production histories (states the j New York "Herald-Tribune”). [ From the humblest beginning a cycle of nine pictures has been generated, said to have returned a larger profit on the investments than any other group of films in screen history. The principal characters have been accepted internationally by typifying the American family. Sermons, editorials, and baccalaureate addresses have lauded the simple but stalwart virtues of the Hardy clan. An unprecedented flood of fan letters has pointed out parallels between incidents of the stories and happenings from the writers’ lives. Many letters have suggested ideas for the narrative to come. Of this great volume of fan mail, more than half is addressed to the Hardy Family (rather than to any one individual. There was no thought of a series, or even a sequel, in the hands of Me-iro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives when a small-budget picture titled “A Family Affair" was put before the Culver City studio cameras in the spring of 1937. Reaction was immediate on release of the picture. The characters had "caught on.” With some scepticism the studio decided to risk a second low-budget picture revolving around the same family. It was a bit hazardous, some felt, to press one’s luck in this way, but maybe the public would patronise a follow-up production. Few know that the first Hardy film was inspired in part by Eugene O’Neill. Success of the screen version of his homespun comedy, “Ah, Wilderness,” suggested more themes of this sort. After the second picture, which was called "You’re Only Young Once,” the Hardy family had become a tribe of destiny, with no man astute enough to predict just how far its fortunes would stretch. "Judge Hardy’s Children,” the third film, grossed more than either of its predecessors, and was followed by "Love Finds Andy Hardy,” "Out West With the Hardys,” “The .Hardys Ride High," "Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever,” "Judge Hardy and Son,” and now “Andy Hardy Meets Debutante.” Since the second picture, when Lewis Stope stepped into the judicial shoes of Lionel Barrymore as head of the Hardy family (because Barrymore had gone to England), the principals have remained the same. The Hardy series proved a tremendous popularity tonic for Mickey Rooney, who during the last three years has advanced to a point where he has been voted America's No. 1 motion picture draw. Cecilia. Parker has been Mickey’s hovering sister in each of the nine pictures: Ann Rutherford has played steadily as Andy’s adolescent sweetheart, Polly Benedict; Sara Haden and Fay Holden have made careers of Aunt Milly and Mrs Hardy. After the studio had looked in pleased surprise at the mounting tidal wave following that first picture, a complete statistical department was set up to guide the future production course. Soon there were more graphs, charts and cross indexes than even a political party headquarters might boast, and these increased with the years. The studio wanted its Hardys to be as close an approximation of the average small-town, white-collai- American family of modest means, as it was possible to create. That family, it was learned, is made up of five members, father, mother, two children, and another relative (usually,an aunt or uncle). The studio has one ironclad rule, rigidly enforced by plot correlator Carey Wilson, director William Seitz and every last prop boy. No situation is ever injected into a Hardy story unless Ihe question, would it happen this way to the average family? can be answered in the affirmative. Would this family have employed a cook? or. would any of the Hardys ever have attended grand opera? are typical of the scores of queries that are threshed out at the round-table conferences where. Hardy plots take form.