Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Joanna Mccarty Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Brooklynn There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 8 May 1937 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. New York opening at the Rialto, 19 April 1937. U.S. release: 19 March 1937. 8 reels. 6,202 feet. 68 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Carvel, Idaho. Judge Hardy inflames his fellow townsmen when he issues an injunction stopping construction work on a major aqueducts project.NOTES: Aurania Rouverol's second stage play, "Skidding", won the Drama League Prize of Pasadena, California, in 1926. It opened on Broadway at the Bijou on 21 May 1928, with Carleton Macy, Clara Blandick, Louise Carter, Charles Eaton, Marguerite Churchill and Walter Abel in the parts of Judge Hardy, Mrs Hardy, Aunt Milly, Andy Hardy, Marian Hardy and Wayne Trent III (sic.), respectively. In addition, the play featured a Grandpa Hardy (Burr Caruth) and two married daughters, Estelle (Isabel Dawn) and Myra (Joan Madison). For the screen version, Grandpa was eliminated and the two married daughters combined. Despite not overly enthusiastic reviews, the play ran a mightily impressive 469 performances. The film rights were bought by MGM, re- titled "A Family Affair", and brought in under a strict budget by the studio's "B" unit, using a screenplay that considerably altered the plot, while retaining the philosophic emphases of the original. Thus was born the most successful series in movie history. Domestic (including Canadian) theater grosses up to 1946: a staggering $73 million.Academy Award to MGM for "its achievement in representing the American Way of Life". (Presented at the 1942 Awards.)COMMENT: The first installment of the Hardy family proves more watchable than some of the others, despite a spurious sub-plot about Joan, the judge's daughter, being left high and dry by her churlish husband. Would you believe, this verbally abused dishrag of a girl actually wants her boorish spouse to forgive her for allowing an admirer to steal a kiss during a meal at a roadhouse? And even more irritatingly unbelievable, the smarmy old male chauvinist judge doesn't sympathize with his browbeaten daughter at all. Instead, he puts in his two cracker-barrel cents for her bullying husband. The hypocritical old coot seems determined to antagonize not only the good citizens of Carvel, but the audience as well. Fortunately, he has more success with the main plot when it turns out that the town's savior developers are not the godsends they appear. Nonetheless, a man of balance and sense would have voiced his concerns from the very beginning. Instead, the judge is portrayed as an obstinate stickler/spoiler who sets out to justify his actions for no other reason than sheer cussedness. He happens to stumble across a "joker" in the contract by sheer chance — and an extremely outside chance at that. What would he have done if the developers hadn't over-reached themselves?For additional comments, see my review of "You're Only Young Once".

utgard14 First in the wonderful Andy Hardy series from MGM. For those who don't know, this series was as wholesome and American as apple pie. It draws snickers and insults from the "too cool for school" crowd but don't let that put you off of trying these fine films. They were quality dramas with dashes of comedy and lots of heart. The plot to this one has Judge Hardy (Lionel Barrymore) ticking off some businessmen and local politicians over a land deal. So the big shots, including former friends of the judge, band together to try to stop his re-election. There's also a subplot involving the judge's eldest daughter's troubled marriage that intersects with the judge's problems. Meanwhile, son Andy (Mickey Rooney) has the first of many girl problems in this series.This is the only entry to feature sister Joan. Not sure why she was dropped but the series isn't hurt by it. The roles of Judge Hardy and his wife would be recast in the next film with Lewis Stone and Fay Holden, who would play the roles for the remainder of the series. Once you see them in the parts it will be hard to imagine that anybody else could do the roles justice. Also Mickey Rooney's Andy would become the star of the later films, whereas in the early films (such as this) Judge Hardy is clearly the star. It's a fantastic series that gets its start here in this somewhat atypical but still high quality movie.

Robert J. Maxwell This was the first of the Andy Hardy series, in which Mickey Rooney is the spry young man who croons about cars and is attracted to girls, although he doesn't understand them, or why he's attracted to them. Rooney seems not to walk. He darts from place to place, his skull spins on its axis, hair flopping from side to side. I'd love to have his adrenals.This being fundamentally one of MGM's "happy family" movies -- nobody could foresee the myriad sequels -- Rooney is ranked fourth in the credits, and the pater familias is not the stolid Lewis Stone but the whiney-voiced and more expensive Lionel Barrymore. But this established the framework for the imitations that were to come. Today, it would be a pilot for a TV series.Rooney actually doesn't have all that much screen time. He's attracted to a young girl whom he innocently offends, there is a rift in their relationship, and it's resolved at the end. Ditto for his sister and her boyfriend. Exciting car/truck chase on an unpaved mountain road.The main plot thread involves community pressure being put by the citizens of Carvel on Judge Lionel Barrymore to permit the construction of an aqueduct that will mean lots of jobs for the town. (This is 1937, when jobs were very nice to come by.) Barrymore is a man of principle and insists on making his own judgment about the aqueduct. This earns him the disrespect of his neighbors and there is a great protest against him until, with an imaginary trumpet fanfare, he mounts the podium, waves the mob into silence, and finally explains why he opposes the construction.The apologia takes him about three minutes which, had he spent that time doing the same thing ten minutes into the movie, there would have BEEN no movie.But no matter. The audience applauds wildly, even his most determined adversaries. Judge Hardy wins the election, accepts the Nobel Prize with gratitude and humility, and is offered a long-term movie contract.

grantch This was a charming movie which I unfortunately tuned into half way through, shown on Turner Classic Movies in the wee hours on May 19, 2004. I'll look for it again and tape it. I was surprised to see Lionel Barrymore as Judge Hardy. Very creditable performance. Probably he wasn't used again in the resultant series because of his ill health, but I'm just guessing. It was indeed a treat to see pre-December Bride Spring Byngton (how many of you readers can name her co-stars in that sit com?). And who can name the Western series she was featured in some 40 years ago? I digress. Turner has just started Judge Hardy's Children with Lewis Stone taking his rightful place as Judge Hardy. It's 4:32 am and I think I'm hooked on the students of Carvel High. Check out A Family Affair, you'll like it. Ted Turner must own the rights, so how about an Andy Hardy DVD box?