After eight films as Pa Kettle Percy Kilbridge decided to call it a day but Marjorie Main slugged it out for two more Kettle films on her own. Or rather, with new male co-stars. This one has her with Arthur Hunnicutt, playing Pa’s brother Sedgwick. Ma goes to visit him with 13 kids in order to help him stay the farm while Pa stays at home. (Tom, Rosie and Elwin – who are referred to – don’t come along.)
So they hop on the train and are genuine pains with their animals and food going everywhere – which is annoying rather than funny. They arrive at the farm to see that Sedgwick has unwittingly hired out the farm to gangsters bootleggers and hijinks ensue.
In order to ease the transition for the audience, Sedgwick is established as a lazy no-good who has Indian helpers and has a woman (in this case his fiancée) do a lot of work for him. But it’s almost always a mistake to replace a beloved character with a direct copy and it certainly is so here. Kilbridge had this wonderful, laid back dry delivery – Hunnicutt tries but he’s just not up to it. And also the fact that he’s Ma’s brother in law, not husband, leaves a hole at the heart of the film – no matter how lazy Pa was, Ma loved him, and they had enough of a sex life to produce sixteen kids.
And I’m sorry for Sedgwick not to marry his fiancée for twenty years – that’s really not funny. It’s just mean (she’s missed the chance of having children). At least Pa gave Ma sex, kids and romance. Although there is a pretty elder Kettle teenage girl, they don’t do anything with her – the film could have used a bit of romance, instead of trying to get Sedg to marry his fiancée, which is sad.
There’s a bit more slapstick in this one – lots of falling down wells, shenanigans involving animals, including a funny sequence where they get drunk (drunk pigs are gold). But generally this is very hard going.
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