Ma and Pa Kettle at Home

Ma and Pa Kettle at Home
March 10, 1954
Universal
Comedy
VHS
C+

In this entry, the previously never mentioned second (?) Kettle son, Elwin, has just finished high school and hopes to win a college scholarship that The National Magazine is sponsoring.  So he's written an essay lying about the family's rundown farm, but the magazine sends out two judges to investigate the farm and that of his local rival/girlfriend Sally Mattocks.  Why a New-York-based magazine would do this is beyond me, but it's just one of the oddities of a script that includes Pa convincing his Indian friends and their tribe to pretend to go on the warpath so Pa can look like a hero.  There's also Ma sort of matchmaking the local spinster librarian (Mary Wickes) with the older judge, the obviously symbolic courtship of the Mattocks's cow by the Kettles' bull (who wears a bowler), and what's meant to be a heartwarming Christmas that just comes across as awkward.

Apparently Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki was filmed before this, and it's possible this was meant to be the last entry.  In any case, all the Kettle kids have been replaced by the following:

• Patrick Miller, then 33 (!), as Teddy
• Brett Halsey, then 20, as Elwin
• Carol Nugent, then 16, as Nancy
• Tony Epper, then 15, as Donny
• Judy Nugent (Carol's sister?), then 13, as the otherwise unheard of Betty
• Whitey Haupt, then 13, as Henry
• Gary Pagett, then 13, as George
• Patricia Morrow, then 10, as Susie, although she'd be two non-Kettles in the last two entries in the series
• Richard Eyer, then 8, as Billy (the one who likes frogs and wears a propeller beanie)
• Nancy Zane, then 7, as Sarah
• Coral Hammond, age unknown, as Eve
• Donald MacDonald, age unknown, as Benjamin
• Donna Cregan Moots, age unknown, as Ruthie

There's no mention of Tom, but Rosie is working in Seattle over Christmas.  This again gives us a total of fifteen kids.

James Flavin played a policeman in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars as well.  Helen Gibson was in MaPK at the Fair.  Ken Terrell and Hank Worden were in MaPK on Vacation, but I think they were playing French rather than Indian then.  Alice Kelley, who's Sally here, was a stewardess in that movie.  Marjorie Bennett, who portrays the corset saleslady, would appear in Mary Poppins.