A Yank at Eton Film Review

I am not sure exactly why, but this film irritated me from start to finish. Everything about it. Maybe because it was made in 1942 and the world was at war and you would never know it from this film. But I was thinking, what mother would have her two children come over to England on a liner with U-boats hunting ships in the Atlantic. Here is Mickey Rooney playing a high school student again while in real life he is married to Ava Gardner (and cheating on her). He is the halfback on the football team planning to go to Notre Dame and be an All-American. Rooney was 5'2''. I know people were smaller back then, but halfback on Notre Dame? I like Rooney - he was incredible gifted and versatile - but let's keep it a little real. Anyway, his mother is in England and marries a Duke or an Earl or maybe it was the Duke of Earl but he has this huge estate with racehorses and dogs and lots of tea. Crumpets too.

Rooney and his sister (Juanita Quigley - a child star for a while) arrive in England and he is expected to go to Eton with all the other upper crust and of course being an American he scoffs at Eton traditions and gets in all sorts of stupid trouble. All of his own making. You basically want to smack him for being a typical Ugly American. But in the end, he shows his true nobility and begins to honor the old traditions of the school. And plays cricket and English football and stars at both. Oh, good grief. All filmed in America because the producers were not silly enough to send their actors to England in war time. This is MGM at its blandest. Pip pip old boy. Stiff upper lip and all that. Fancy a cuppa tea.

Directed by Norman Taurog who had a varied resume over the years from a bunch of Elvis Presley films to a few Lewis & Martin films. He also directed Rooney in Boy's Town, Young Tom Edison and Girl Crazy. A few Judy Garland films too. Supporting Rooney here is Edmund Gwenn as the school headmaster, Ian Hunter as his new father, Peter Lawford as one of the dickish senior students and Freddie Bartholomew nearly grown-up as his stepbrother. He along with Rooney had been MGM's male child stars in the 1930s with Captain Courageous, Little Lord Fauntleroy and Kidnapped. His cuteness was coming to an end though and so was his career.