Thursdays in December | 59 Movies
In 2002, TV Guide ranked the Mickey Rooney-led sitcom “One of the Boys” among the 50 Worst Shows of All Time. On the plus side, it inspired one of Dana Carvey’s most indelible celebrity impressions. In one of his earliest roles, the future “Saturday Night Live” cast member costarred with Rooney, who portrayed his colorful and energetic grandfather. As Carvey told it in interviews, a then-62-year-old Rooney regaled cast and crew with stories from his then-half-century career. (He continued to act until his death in 2014 at the age of 93.) Carvey’s impression crystallized Rooney’s mixture of joie de vivre and bitterness: “I was the number one star in the world. You hear me? Bang. The world!”
Rooney wasn’t kidding. In 1939, America’s theater owners voted Rooney the top box-office star, beating out Tyrone Power. The next year, he topped Spencer Tracy and the year after that, Clark Gable. He was nominated for four Academy Awards and was the recipient of an honorary Juvenile Award in 1939. He was also nominated for five Emmys, winning one (as well as a Golden Globe) for his heartbreaking performance as a mentally challenged man transitioning from an institution to the outside world in the made-for-TV movie Bill (1981). He earned $12 million before he was 40 and spent it all and then some. As was said of Charles Foster Kane, no one’s private life was more public. He was married eight times (a fount of material for comedians), including to Ava Gardner. The song about getting knocked down but getting up again could have been written about Rooney.
When it seemed like his career was down for the count, he got off the canvas and made his boffo Broadway debut in his late 50s in “Sugar Babies,” a knockabout burlesque that earned him a Tony nomination. In 1983, he was honored with another honorary Academy Award commemorating his 60-year career. “When I was 19 years old, I was the number one star of the world. When I was 40, nobody wanted me. I couldn't get a job,” he memorably reflected in his emotional acceptance speech. And while he fell short of EGOT status, he did receive four different stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
This month, TCM is putting on the ultimate show featuring Rooney as its Star of the Month every Thursday, all day. A staggering 59 films display his astonishing range as a comedic and dramatic actor as well as a musical performer. In his 1994 autobiography “Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me,” Marlon Brando called Rooney “an unsung hero of the actors’ world… like Jimmy Cagney, he could do almost anything.” Director John Frankenheimer considered Rooney “the best actor I ever worked with.” And Frankenheimer worked with Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, Warren Beatty, Karl Malden, Kirk Douglas, Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin and, well, you get it.
Roger Ebert proclaimed his “the longest career in the history of show business.” Rooney is the very definition of a “trouper” (or as Variety once called him, a “socko personality”). Like Buster Keaton, he first took the stage with his parents’ vaudevillian act. He was 17 months old. He made his film debut at the age of six. He barely cleared five feet, but he was larger than life, someone to whom the Energizer Bunny might have said, “Hey, slow down.”
Following the heyday of his film career in the 1930s and ‘40s, Rooney did some of his greatest work for television. While not included in TCM’s Rooney roster, his solo turn on “The Twilight Zone” in the “Last Night of a Jockey” episode and his eponymous role in the 1957 “Playhouse 90” presentation of “The Comedian” are well worth checking out. “The Comedian,” in particular, is a revelatory dramatic departure in which he portrays a ruthless, daringly unlikeable character. (The identity of the actual comedian he is said to be based on is as intriguing a pop culture mystery as who Carly Simon is singing about in “You’re So Vain.”) Following the broadcast, Rooney reportedly received a telegram that read, “Thanks for the acting lesson.” It was signed by Paul Newman.
There are the timeless Rooney classics you’ll want to be sure to see: Boys Town (1938), The Human Comedy (1943)* and National Velvet (1944) air on December 12. The Black Stallion (1979)* and musicals co-starring Judy Garland—Babes in Arms (1939)*, Strike Up the Band (1940) and Babes on Broadway (1941)—all air December 19.
On December 26, TCM will broadcast all 16 of Rooney’s Andy Hardy films beginning with A Family Affair (1937) and ending with Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958) (“a rockin’, rollin’ Rooney riot” according to the film’s trailer). This is the franchise for which Rooney was best known and beloved. Girl and car crazy, Andy Hardy was America’s quintessential teenager from the idealized small town of Carvel, California. But the iconic character hampered his transition into more adult roles. “I played a 14-year-old for 30 years,” he once ruefully joked. Of the Hardy films, be sure not to miss the fourth in the series, Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), which features the Holy Trinity of Ann Rutherford as steadfast girlfriend Polly Benedict, Lana Turner as Cynthia Potter and making her franchise debut, Garland as Betsy Booth. This was the series’ biggest moneymaker.
But the month-long salute to Rooney is studded with lesser-known films and underseen gems that demonstrate his boundless versatility. Early glimpses are always fascinating. TCM kicks off its month-long tribute on December 5 with The Beast of the City (1932), Rooney’s first film for MGM. He is unbilled as police Captain Walter Huston’s rambunctious young son. Manhattan Melodrama (1934) is best known as the film John Dillinger was watching before he was gunned down in the alley next to Chicago’s Biograph Theater. Rooney shines in his “child is father to the adult” role as the law-skirting boy who will grow up to become Clark Gable’s gambler, Blackie.
Another lesser-seen early Rooney film is Stablemates (1938), a Champ-adjacent tearjerker with Rooney reunited with his Ah, Wilderness! (1935) castmate Wallace Beery. In his memoir “Life is Too Short,” Rooney wrote, “I never had so much fun making a movie. I guess it showed because the box office was sensational (the picture grossed more than three times its cost) and so were the reviews.”
The December 12 lineup includes Killer McCoy (1947), Rooney’s first adult role and as a boxer, he is—wait for it—a knockout. Noted film critic James Agee called his performance “cooly magical,” while “The New York Times” raved, “Whatever one may think of him as a prize-fighter, he is a wonderful little actor, whether doing a dance routine, fighting, displaying anguish upon hearing of the death of his dear mother, consoling the wife of the opponent his blows killed or passing wisecracks at a lunch counter waitress.”
December 19 features several films that chart Rooney’s transition to shedding his plucky Andy Hardy persona. The day begins with Quicksand (1950), in which Rooney stars as a hapless auto mechanic who becomes in thrall to femme fatale Jeanne Cagney. Putting Rooney, who helped lift America’s spirits during the Depression, in a film noir seems almost perverse, which is what makes his crime films all the more compelling. Another fine example is The Strip (1951), with Rooney as a Korean War vet and nightclub jazz drummer who runs afoul of a mobster (James Craig). (Look for another beloved child star, Tommy Rettig, of TV’s “Lassie” and The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, 1953, fame.)
In 24 Hours to Kill (1965), Rooney is a luckless flight crew member whose plane is forced to land in Beirut, home to a smuggling ringleader (Walter Slezak) whose gold shipment Rooney has hijacked for himself. No sympathy here, as Rooney’s transgression endangers the other crew members, but he is great at playing desperate characters. The day concludes with six Rooney-Garland musicals, including their first, Babes in Arms and their last, Words and Music (1948), a biopic of songwriters Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (Rooney). It would also be Rooney’s last film for MGM, truly the end of an era.
Babes in Arms was a smash that launched a quartet of “let’s put on a show” musicals in which Garland portrayed the archetypical “what you're looking for has been here the whole time” friend to the oblivious Rooney. Arguably the best of these is Strike Up the Band, with the Oscar-nominated song “Our Love Affair” and the virtuoso stop-motion animated production number by George Pal that transforms pieces of fruit into an orchestra.
Spending December with Rooney is a great way to end TCM’s programming year. An icon of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Rooney exemplifies TCM’s mission to help maintain the cultural memory of the 20th century's greatest art form. “The audience and I are friends,” Rooney once said, “They allowed me to grow up with them. I've let them down several times. They've let me down several times. But we're all family."
See you all at the family reunion.
*Rooney was nominated for an Academy Award.
