Radio review – Lux – “The Egg and I” (1947) **1/2

Although Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert are back, this isn’t as fun as the film because they have different actors for Ma and Pa Kettle. Stuff like this works a lot of sight gags too. Still it’s pretty fun.

Movie review – Kettle #10 - “The Kettles on Old MacDonald’s Farm” (1956) *

The last Kettle movie sees them replace the theme music with ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ and replace Arthur Hunnicutt with Parker Fennelly. Fennelly actually plays Pa, but although he tries it doesn’t work. It is good to see Ma romancing, but it’s like she’s cheating on Pa. They should have just killed off Pa and have Ma get a new boyfriend. Ma being wooed – now that’s a great idea for a Kettle film.

There’s some romance, between poor John Smith (who acts with the awkwardness of a body builder) and boss’s daughter Gloria Talbott. Why didn’t they make the poor kid one of the Kettles? They want to get married so they hide out at the Kettles old farm. The girl’s father tracks them down. He actually likes the poor kid but is worried that his spoilt daughter won’t be able to last as his wife. So Ma suggests she rough it on the farm for a few weeks so she learns how to be a good little housewife.

Now that’s not a bad fish out of water type concept, a little sexist, but solid – a princess roughs it on the farm. Only they totally mess up the execution. The concept only works if the girl is a real princess, but Talbot can’t act, and they don’t give her character any princess factor. They should have made her a fashion model or a movie star or something. And her rationale for living on the farm is a bit weak – to pass a test so she can get married. She should have been a pampered movie star researching a role or a city journalist doing it for a bet or something.

This drags on and on with far too much time on the dull lead couple. The biggest strength of this was Marjorie Main – why not make it a Ma Kettle story? Have her inherit a city store or run for Congress or something? Or have her wooed? Why not make one of the kids a Kettle? This film shows a total lack of understanding of comedy construction. There aren’t even any Indians – just a dopey mate of Pa’s called George. (Why not have him as a Kettle kid?) The only decent bit is when Ma stares down a bear.

A sign of the times – one of Ma’s little kids is called Elvis who plays on a banjo.

Movie review – Kettle #9 – “The Kettles in the Ozarks” (1956) *1/2

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.

Movie review - Kettle # 8 – “Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki” (1956) ***

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.

Movie review - Kettle #7 – “Ma and Pa Kettle at Home” (1953) **1/2

The Kettle films alternated between two main plots – the Kettles at home or the Kettles on a trip. This one sees them back at home and introduces a third heart-throb Kettle child – Elwin (Brett Halsey), a senior in high school. The plot has him in competition with a neighbour school girl over best farm – first prize is a college scholarship. That’s not a bad little plot, if contrived – I wondered when they were going to get around to a Hatfield and McCoy type story, and actually this could have been developed a little more.

But to compensate, Percy Kilbridge as Pa is in very strong form. It really gives him a chance to shine, watching lazy, shiftless Pa try to con and bludge his way into having a good farm. It’s also great to see the whole family back in their ramshackle house again – they belong there a lot more naturally than in their new-fangled home. (It’s a shame they couldn’t have moved back in long before, but I guess they felt they couldn’t after all the points they made about hygiene in Ma and Pa Kettle.)

There are two visiting journalists, a snobby guy and a younger journo who perhaps is supposed to be a leading man, but he looks kind of goofy. There’s a surprisingly schmaltzy Christmas finale – they real pour it on with fellowship, good cheer and hugs, a real throwback to The Egg and I.

Movie review – Kettle #6 – “Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation” (1952) **

The Kettle films stuck to continuity more than, say, Universal’s horror series. They were always reusing supporting characters and cast and keeping things relatively consistent. (For instance, Pa’s Indian friends, the door to door salesman, and Ma’s nosy rival and her mother, appeared in most of the film in the series including The Egg and I.) This one features Ma and Pa’s in laws from Back on the Farm, who invite Ma and Pa to go to Paris.

The in-laws like them so there’s no conflict there. And, even more surprisingly, there is no subplot involving one of the Kettle’s kids. Instead the writers have come up with a spy who gives Pa some important documents. The baddies inc Sig Rumann spend most of the film trying to get a letter off him – which becomes wearying, especially after the half way mark when Pa gives the letter to the Embassy. The rest of the film has Pa act for the US government to smoke out the agents – but since he’s already given the letter to the government there are no real stakes. Not enough story for a feature.

Some bright spots: a really funny joke about Pa’s WW1 service (“they said I couldn’t go until they scraped the bottom of the barrel”), Pa speaking in a French accent, Ma punching out a spy, a great scene where the Kettles watch a dance sequence of a man slapping around a woman and Ma gets all upset, and a touching moment where Pa and Ma reminisce about the night he proposed. There’s yet another scene where Ma gets dolled up, something like the third in the series so far – I’m not opposed to these scenes, but the scriptwriters don’t really vary them much.

These films don’t hold up too well when you pay them attention, but they’re great when you have them on the television while reading a book or something. The best thing about them is the marvellous performances by Percy Kilbridge and Marjorie Main. Kilbridge all slow and non-plussed, Main bombast and raucous.

Note how when Ma and Pa say goodbye to their kids before going to Paris, this one Kettle child stands in the middle of the frame, given this attention which is never paid of. I wonder if they were the child of an executive or something?

Movie review – Kettle #5 - “Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair” (1951) **1/2

Two of Abbott and Costello’s key contributors join the Kettle franchise for this instalment – writer John Grant and director Charles Barton. They finally dump Tom and Kim Kettle (who really only had two films in them) and suddenly there’s another non-retarded Kettle child, Rosie, played by pretty Universal contractee Lori Nelson, who romances James Best.

Unlike the last three Kettle films, this doesn’t have high concept twists like gangsters, ad campaigns, visiting New York or uranium. The humour more observational and based in reality, being centred around Pa’s laziness and tight fisted-ness. (Just thinking about it Pa drives these movies more than Ma) and a local fair a la State Fair. Ma enters a jam competition, Pa goes in a horse race, Rosie is a bit embarrassed about her parents. Even Rosie’s embarrassment, which is a bit unsympathetic, rings true (and at least she always apologises for it). This does mean though it’s a very light movie – perhaps too light. More could have been made of the romance plot – there’s no conflict there, just two kids who like each other and go dating. And Rosie’s whining does get on the nerves.

Grant surely had something to do with the Abbott and Costello references especially the Indians selling blankets at the fair (they mention “Who’s on First” and when a skinny guy and slightly chubby guy come along to buy some blankets and engage in word play, they ask if they’re Abbott and Costello – was this meant to be a cameo?) I’d guess he also had something to do with the routines where Pa negotiates with his creditors – there’s lots of word play and unique maths, very Abbott and Costello.

Movie review – Kettle #4 - “Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm” (1951) **

With fifteen children, you’d think the Kettles wouldn’t have to keep relying on their eldest, Tom, to provide them with story, but that’s what happens with this one – Tom’s wife Kim is about to have a baby, resulting in her parents coming to visit the Kettles (apparently they didn’t come to the wedding). Mum is a snob – she insists on naming the baby after Kim’s father (played by Ray Collins). But Tom Kettle wants the baby named after himself, which in my book is worse.

Anyway, the Kettles decide to move back out to the farm to get away from their in laws, so they can raise their baby in the new house (don’t Tom and Kim have their own home?). Then people think there is uranium on the Kettle farm – because Pa wears radioactive overalls once used by Long when he watched the atomic bomb tests during the war. (So presumably Tom Kettle isn’t going to live as long as his parents).

It’s a bit too convenient for the mother in law to be a dragon and I didn’t like Kim for going along with the idea of leaving for so long. Horrible misogynistic ending with everyone putting the dragon in her place; “will you behave yourself in the future?” asks Tom of Kim, and she nods.

Fun stuff: Pa’s expression when he thinks Ma is having another baby, Ma trying to be posh at dinner scene, Ma sticking up for her Indian friends to visit the baby. There’s also a vaudeville type routine, 14 x 5 = 25, which is a variation of a popular Abbott and Costello routine, plus a sequence where the Kettle’s friends (the door to door salesman and the Indians) steal a series of babies thinking their Tom Kettle’s – which is kind of funny until you realise that the parents of those babies would be freaking out.

Movie review – Kettle #3 – “Ma and Pa Kettle Go To Town” (1950) **

This picks off after the last film, with Pa Kettle having won a competition that takes him to New York. They also get involved with escaped gangsters – stock characters who always turn up in these sort of movies (indeed, I’m surprised there were no gangsters in Ma and Pa Kettle). In a rather convoluted set up a gangster volunteers to look after the kids so Ma and Pa to go to New York and drop off a baggage (not really believable). In another contrivance, the bag goes missing. This results in a lot of irritatingly repetitive scenes with gangsters trying to get the bag off Pa – but there’s no point to it because it’s not the right bag (Pa buys a replacement).

Ma and Pa meet their son and daughter in law – the son Tom is trying to sell his incubator, mentioned in the previous film. They’re having marriage problems due to Tom’s jealousy over his wife Kim’s ex, resulting in a lot of un-interesting squabbling.

There is some fun stuff: Ma does battle with pancake, the radio station that plays ‘Music to Milk By’, Pa shows a gangster around the old homestead, 30 Rock fans will enjoy the scene where the Kettles visit 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the Kettles go for a ride around Central Park (and it flashes through your mind that these two must have had a thriving sex life), Ma on an exercise bike, Charles McGraw and Jim Backus as gangsters.

But generally the action is mild – you’d think the Kettles in New York City would be automatic comedy gold, and so evidently did the writers, because they didn’t seem to put much effort into the script. Indeed, much of the comedy is surprisingly carried by the support players – comic gangsters, cops and shop assistants. (Dad and Dave Come to Town is far superior). There are plenty of good ideas floating around – gangsters think Pa is a gangster, a businessman thinks he is a tycoon – but these aren’t developed properly.

Some of the scenes are really badly structured – eg Pa being cross examined by cops for a crime is a funny concept… but they’re doing it here for a silly crime (poisoning monkeys). It would have been far better for everyone – cops and gangsters – thought Pa was a big time gangster or something (there are hints in this line, but they didn’t run with the concept).

Also, around an hour into the film, the rich guy who picks up the real bag thinks that Pa is an underwear millionaire – a fine idea, enough for a film… but introduced far too late (and you can’t have a contrivance that Kettle is the surname of an underwear manufacturer that late in the piece.) (NB though it is funny Pa admitting he’s the underwear king because he’s in underwear.)

And it’s funny that the gangster who looks after the kids is tortured by the kids… but the thing is, he doesn’t deserve to be tortured. The bank robbers in Home Alone deserved to get pummelled because they were robbing the house, but not this guy. It wouldn’t have been hard to establish, just have him be really mean to the kids. As it is, the Kettle kids are just mean.

Final contrivance – the Kettles turn up at a high society do (which isn’t even that high society) and they happen to run into the rival for Kim Kettle’s affections. Lazy. Oh, and the Kettles are never in jeopardy, despite gangsters being involved. Just because a film is a formula picture doesn’t mean you can phone it in.

Movie review – Kettle #2 - “Ma and Pa Kettle” (1949) **1/2

The Egg and I was a tremendous success and Universal gave Ma and Pa Kettle their own series. There is something very winning about the rumbustious Ma and her enormous brood (everyone knows or at least has seen poor white trash like them(, married to lazy, shiftless Pa Kettle (everyone’s got a relative like him).

This is set a few years after the Egg and I as Richard Long has just graduated from college. Several characters from that first film return, including the Indians, the local gossip and her mother, the woman who thinks her husband is dead, the medicine man salesman.

Not much of a plot – Pa wins a slogan contest and they move into a new fangled house. Pa may not have actually won the slogan and Richard Long romances a journalist. It’s a bit weak and doesn’t result in much fun, although the two stars are in fine form. The best gag is when Ma carries Pa over the threshold. It gets perhaps a bit too serious and dark when they think Pa is dead - this really isn't that funny.

Movie review – Kettle #1 - “The Egg and I” (1947) ***

Rehashes the same basic situation as George Washington Slept Here, but a much bigger success – partly, I think, because the whole let’s move out to the country thing had more resonance after the war. Fred MacMurray tells Colbert without even asking that he’s quit his job and bought a farm – thanks Fred! But this is Claudette’s movie – she falls off a roof into a bucket of water, falls into mud chasing a pig, has soot fly on her kitchen, another woman chases after her husband, her husband basically ignores her and calls her an idiot for most of the film.

The script’s pretty good – there’s a terrific star turn by Ma and Pa Kettle, who steal the film, plus a decent love triangle involving a glamorous single girl farmer who sets her cap at MacMurray (though this goes on too far long at the end), and then handsome lunk Richard Long takes care of the teen girl interest as the eldest Kettle. (You don’t believe he’s related – Ma makes a joke along these lines)

Claudette Colbert’s little ticks and stuff kept reminding me of my grandmother. MacMurray does his amiable absent-minded schtick well. But Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbridge are fantastic.

There’s some schmaltz that works genuinely well, such as Claudette and Fred dressing up in formal wear, and the town rallying around when their barn burns down (although there’s this subtext that the mayor forces them to participate – and speaking of that mayor character, I kind of got the feeling he was like those pseudo-fascists who always make sure everything runs nice and smooth, so he’d run any trouble makers out of town).