They finally alter the music for the opening credits a little, though not much, and the opening credits remain the same. This has a great idea – one of Pa’s old rivals for Ma, a cousin, became a pineapple tycoon in Hawaii. But now he’s fighting to hang onto his pineapple empire, so he asks Pa to help, under the mistaken impression that Pa is a highly successful businessman (on the basis of some lying letters). So they trot out to Hawaii.
The idea of lazy, shiftless Pa pretending to be a successful tycoon is a great one, and you wonder why it wasn’t used before – in perhaps a more obviously business-y city than Honolulu. Tycoons walking around dressed like Pa Kettle would be highly unusual in New York or Chicago – but not that odd, one can’t help thinking, in Hawaii. But who knows maybe it is and it still works fine, especially when people start talking his idiot pronouncements as analysis of genius. (A concept used back in Once in a Lifetime and later in Being There).
Lori Nelson comes back as the hot Kettle, Rosie, one of 15. (They don’t mention Elwin or Tom). There’s a rehash of the routine of Ma dealing with some snobby dowagers (not very funny), a convoluted finale with gangsters luring Pa out to an island with a tale of buried treasure and Russell Johnson from Gilligan’s Island plays a sort of gangster businessman.
The Hawaiian setting is not really exploited for the first half– you get the impression this bit was originally written to be set in any big city, then rewritten for the Hawaiian angle. But the last third, dealing with shenanigans involving gangsters on and island, feels specially tailored for the location. (They totally drop Nelson and the male love interest for this bit and instead have Ma and Pa to run into their Hawaiian equivalents – lazy dad, fat ma, and massive brood of kids.)
Unlike most Hawaiian movies, it’s in black and white and there’s not an emphasis on bikini babes - Lori Nelson doesn’t even get into a swimsuit. In the first two thirds all the Hawaiian characters are in menial jobs – massaging white people, rickshaw drivers. A glimpse of a factory with all the Hawaiians toiling on the line is unexpectedly depressing. (However, it is funny when the rickshaw driver carting Ma gets tired and Ma has to take over.) But then the last third introduces the Hawaiian Kettles, whose massive brood of kids helps Ma and Pa defeat some gangsters.
More could have been made of Pa’s jealousy over Ma’s suitor, and a lot more smoothness in the construction, but this is one of the brightest Kettles. The playing of the leads remains wonderful.
NB Claudette Thornton, who plays a secretary, gets this credit “secretary to Mr Thornton” and a bunch of close ups – another budding star? Or executive’s girlfriend? That seems to happen a few times in these B pictures.
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