6/10
Graduation At Carvel High
10 August 2010
In the tenth of sixteen Andy Hardy films it was decided to finally let Mickey Rooney graduate from Carvel High School. That event centers around all the plot situations in Andy Hardy's Private Secretary.

Hiring of a private secretary comes about through some bad bookkeeping by class president Mickey Rooney. When he hires a secretary, pretty Kathryn Grayson, the problems of her family which consists of father Ian Hunter and brother Todd Karns get intertwined with the Hardys. Fortunately wise old Lewis Stone as Judge Hardy is there to straighten it all out.

This film was Kathryn Grayson's feature film debut and she has a couple of opera arias delivered in fine style. Naturally she's the hit of the graduation.

One of the big problems is that Rooney involved that he is almost doesn't graduate because he flunks the final exam in English. Making matters worse was the English teacher is his aunt Sara Haden. But of course that too is resolved.

Was there ever a place as perfect as Carvel? Next to it George Bailey's Bedford Falls is positively sin city and that's before the angel does his thing.

Even Ann Rutherford as loyal girlfriend Polly Benedict takes Rooney back once again. Half, maybe more than half the Hardy films have Rooney getting involved with another girl like Grayson only to have Ann Rutherford take him back. Why she didn't give Mickey his walking papers permanently is one of the mysteries of the silver screen.

Still Andy Hardy's Private Secretary with its featured singing of Kathryn Grayson is a good example of why the series was so popular with Americans. Places like Carvel just had to exist somewhere in the USA.
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