Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki

Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki
April 1955
Universal
Comedy
VHS
B-

This was apparently made in 1952, but not released for three years.  (And, no, I don't know why they're at rather than in Waikiki.)  The earlier production may be why it feels less tired than the previous entry.  There's lots of slapstick, as well as the relatively subtle humor of a lazy man like "P.A. Kettle" trying to run a factory.  (His cousin Rodney calls him Frank, but misunderstands "Pa."  Rodney also calls Ma "Phoebe" and he courted her at the same time Pa did.)  It's interesting to get glimpses of Hawaii a few years before it became a state.  Ma has the funniest moments in this one, whether driving a rickshaw driver or offending a snooty woman played by Mabel Albertson, who is instantly recognizable as Samantha Stephens's difficult mother-in-law on Bewitched.  Pa does meet his Hawaiian counterpart (with twelve kids named after the months) and annoy kidnappers without trying.  One of the villains is a young Russell Johnson.

Lori Nelson is back as Rosie, the role she took on in MaPK at the Fair, although she has a new boyfriend here.  We don't see much of her 14 [sic] siblings, as they're sent off to camp while Ma, Pa, and Rosie go away.  George Arglen, Margaret Brown, Billy Clark, Jon Gardner, Jackie Jackson, Donna Leary, Jenny Linder, Beverly Mook, Ronnie Rondell, Jr., and Elana Schreiner are all playing the same Kettle kids as in MaPK on Vacation (1953).  Bonnie Kay Eddy (b. 1943) is the new Susie, and Rudy Lee (age unknown) takes over as Billy, while Timmy Hawkins (b. 1938), who was in Singin' in the Rain, becomes Teddy.

Dee Carroll is unconfirmed for MaPK Back on the Farm.  Bob Donnelly was in MaPK on Vacation.  Helen Dickson was in It's a Wonderful Life.  Sally Yarnell was in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars.  Sandra Spence was in There's No Business Like Show Business.  Kilbride retired but Main hung in there for The Kettles in the Ozarks and The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm, both of which I used to own but lost years ago.  As I recall, it wasn't as much fun without Pa.

Monkey Business (1952)

Monkey Business
November 7, 1952
Fox
Comedy, Sci-Fi
DVD
C-

At the time I reviewed the Marx Brothers' 1931 movie, I didn't yet own this one.  A friend gave it to me recently, and I just now watched it for the first time in about thirty years.  I consider the film a disappointment, and I won't be keeping it.  How did so many great talents produce such mediocre results?  I mostly blame the inane script by I.A.L. Diamond (Some Like It Hot), Charles Lederer (His Girl Friday, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), and Ben Hecht (Front Page, which inspired His Girl Friday), as it would've embarrassed Sherwood Schwartz.  At least Schwartz knew how to make crap fun, while Howard Hawks (the director and also opening narrator) just seems to have told everyone, especially leads Grant and Rogers, to act big and frantically, after the sedate beginning.  Poor Marilyn is stuck playing a simple (in every sense) curvy blonde, without the nuances she'd have in Gentlemen Prefer and Some Like, and none of the dizzy charm of her small plum of a role in All About Eve.  (As for Hugh Marlowe, he's no great shakes as an actor anyway, but at least in Eve he had more appealing things to do than get "scalped" by Grant and a gang of children.)  I'd recommend the Merlin Jones movies over this misfire, because even the monkey is pathetic here.  Still, I won't give it a lower grade, since it's not terrible, just meh.

Kathleen Freeman and Forbes Murray were in Singin' in the Rain.  Melinda Plowman was Susie Kettle in Ma and Pa Kettle.  George Eldredge was in MaPK at the Fair.  Esther Dale, here playing Ginger's mother, is Birdie Hicks in the MaPK series.  Faire Binney would be in MaPK at Waikiki.  Roger Moore (no, not that Roger Moore) would be in Gentlemen Prefer, as would Charles Coburn, Henri Letondal, and gravel-voiced little George Winslow.

Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair

Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
July 11, 1952
Universal
Comedy
VHS
B-

As I mentioned earlier, I'm missing MaPK Go to Town (1950) and MaPK Back on the Farm ('51).  So I can't say exactly when the shift came away from the character comedy of the first and zeroeth entries to the cornier humor of this fourth movie in the series.  Whether it's a long-legged scarecrow fleeing for his life, or Geoduck and Crowbar making jokes about Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins, I have no trouble believing that director Charles Barton mostly found his niche in TV sitcoms.  (Amos 'n Andy, McHale's Navy, Petticoat Junction, Family Affair, etc.)  But I did chuckle a few times, and if you can get past the Native American stereotypes, it's pleasant, innocuous comedy.  In this entry, oldest daughter Rosie (who's dating James Best, later of Dukes of Hazzard) wants to go to college, so her parents hope to win some prize money.  The script manages to rip off both A Day at the Races and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, but you probably aren't expecting much originality anyway.

Other than Rosie, the Kettle kids don't do much in this entry, but here's a round-up (and no, I don't know if all the Jackson kids are related):

1. Tom (not mentioned, but by this point in the series I think he was not only a husband but a father)
2. Rosie is now played by blonde Lori Nelson (then 18), rather than brunette Gloria Moore.
3. Eugene Persson, then 18, who was an unnamed Kettle child in The Egg and I and Ted Kettle in Ma and Pa Kettle (then for some reason Willie Kettle in MaPK Go to Town), is Teddy here, his last appearance in the series.  
4. Donna Leary, then 16, returns as Sally.
5. Elana Schreiner, then 15, returns as Nancy.
6. Teddy Infuhr, then 15, returns as Benjamin.
7. Ronnie Rondell, Jr., also 15, becomes Dannie.  
8. Billy Gray, then 14, is a nameless Kettle child, but would play the only son on Father Knows Best.
9. Beverly Mook, then 11, is back as Eve.
10. George Arglen, then 11, skipped the previous two in the series but is back as Willie.
11. Sherry Jackson, then 10, became Susie in MaPK Go to Town
12. Jackie Jackson (age unknown) became Henry in the same movie, taking over the role from George McDonald.
13. Margaret Brown (age unknown) is back as Ruthie.
14. Gary Lee Jackson (age unknown) takes over the role of Billy from two earlier actors.
15. Billy Clark (age unknown) takes over as George from his predecessor.
16. Jenny Linder (age unknown) first appears as Sara here.

Yes, that comes to sixteen kids, rather than the fifteen in earlier entries, but even Ma and Pa are never sure of the exact number, or names, of their brood.  At one point in the movie, they say they've been married 24 years, but later it's 30.  And Ma is supposed to be 52, meaning she must've had at least one change-of-life baby.  (Main was 62, but as energetic as ever.)                                                                                                                                      Nolan Leary was in Ma and Pa Kettle.  Esther Dale returns as frenemy Birdie Hicks, although she has a different mother this time.  Emory Parnell is back as Billy Reed.  Oliver Blake claims the role of Indian Geoduck (played by two other actors previously), which he'll keep almost to the end.  Brick Sullivan was in It's a Wonderful Life and Singin' in the Rain.  Kenner G. Kemp was also in Singin' in the Rain.  James Conaty was in All About Eve.                                                                                                                     This time, Frank O'Connor is a jam judge.  Rex Lease returns as the sheriff and would be in Abbott & Costello Go to Mars, which would also feature Juanita Close, Harold DeGarro, Frank Marlowe, and Syd Saylor.  Helen Gibson would appear in MaPK at Home, Bob Donnelly in MaPK at Waikiki.

Ma and Pa Kettle

Ma and Pa Kettle
April 1, 1949
Universal
Comedy
VHS
B-

While I won't say this is a rollicking comedy, it has a certain charm, partly from its focus on the Kettles (who stole The Egg and I), partly from oldest boy Tom's romance, and partly from the culture clash of the family with post-war prosperity.  Of course, Pa is lazy, but he does happen to win a contest, with first prize a pre-fab house chockful of modern gadgets.  (He just wanted the free tobacco pouch for entering.)  So, he, Ma, and the fifteen kids, including Tom (just home from college), move from the farm to the new place.  Ma cooks a roast pig in the new oven, which is only supposed to take two or three minutes!  Pa has to deal with remote-controlled radio and TV, as well as sun-lamps in the bathroom.  Meanwhile, Tom has met a pretty but opinionated reporter named Kim.  They have chemistry together, and I like that she has a career.  (I think she gives it up in the sequels though.)

I used to have all the Kettle movies, but it looks like I'm missing the next two and the last two.  (Kilbride would drop out due to poor health, and the last two have "Kettles" in the titles rather than "Ma and Pa Kettle.")  This first entry establishes the formula of course, so that the theme tune (taken from The Egg and I), the opening credits, and some other elements would stay the same through much of the series.  Charles Lamont would direct about half of the sequels.

We actually get a role call of the kids, so thanks to IMDB, here's a list:

1. Tom
2. oldest girl Rosie (played by Gloria Moore, who'd appear in Singin' in the Rain as a chorus girl)
3. Ted (15-year-old Eugene Persson)
4. Danny (14-year-old Dale Belding, who'd be in a couple of the entries I'm missing)
5. Sara (13-year-old Diane Florentine, who was nameless in The Egg and I)
6. Benjamin (12-year-old Teddy Infuhr)
7. Nancy (12-year-old Elana Schreiner)
8. Sally (12-year-old Donna Leary)
9. Billy (played by a 9-year-old)
10. Eve (8-year-old Beverly Mook)
11. Susie (8-year-old Melinda Plowman, who'd go on to Cary Grant's Monkey Business)
12. Willie (8-year-old George Arlen)
13. Ruthie (Margaret Brown, age unknown but she did appear on the Dobie Gillis show in '61)
14. Henry (George McDonald, age unknown, who was in The Egg)
15. George (played by a child whose age in unknown but he would be MaPK Go to Town).

(Oddly enough, Ma and Pa have been together thirty years, but most of their kids seem to be under seventeen.  Maybe that includes the years of courtin'.)

Emory Parnell, who was Mr. Tuerck in Miracle of Morgan's Creek, is almost unrecognizable as Billy Reed.  Esther Dale and Isabel O'Madigan are back as Birdie Hicks and her mother, with Birdie still holding a grudge against Ma for winning the quilt contest in The Egg.  (Ma used the prize money to send Tom to college, so four years apparently have passed.)  Rex Lease would continue to play the sheriff in later entries.  Nolan Leary, who plays the minister here, gets demoted to church usher in Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair.  Harry Chesire would also be in Fair.

The Egg and I

The Egg and I
May 1947
Universal
Comedy
VHS
C+

Late in the movie, heroine Betty's mother says, "In my opinion, both you and Bob have behaved very stupidly."  Indeed, it's difficult to say who in the couple has been more of an idiot.  At first, the prize would seem to go to Bob (Fred MacMurray), who waits till his wedding night to tell Betty (Claudette Colbert) that he's bought a chicken farm that they'll live on.  The farm turns out to be very rundown, but Bob doesn't understand any of Betty's reservations.  He also doesn't understand her jealousy of the Lauren-Bacall wannabe down the road.  On the other hand, Betty jumps to conclusions when Bob doesn't come for dinner one night (he's buying the wannabe's farm to surprise Betty), and she leaves without talking to him about it.  Not only that, she goes home to mother and rips up all of Bob's letters.  She already knows she's pregnant, but she doesn't tell him till they reconcile, and the baby is a few days old!

What saves the movie is that it's sort of the zeroeth entry in the decade-long Ma and Pa Kettle series.  The Kettles (played by Percy Kilbride and the incomparable Marjorie Main, she nominated for an Oscar for this film) are Northwest hillbillies, with a bunch of kids, roughly a dozen.  Pa is lazy, Ma isn't, and they're an odd couple in other ways, including body types.  (Pa is small and thin, Ma is big).  They're not at all a typical post-war couple, but they became a hit with audiences.  I haven't read the book The Egg and I, but I get the impression that they're very different in print.  The title I assume is a pun on The King and I.

This time Frank O'Connor is one of the "revelers at the country dance."  Vangie Beilby was in A Day at the Races and The Bank Dick.  Jesse Graves was in Citizen Kane.  Victor Potel, who was the newspaper editor in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, plays the Indian Crowbar here, but he would be replaced by several actors as the series went on.  Joseph E. Bernard, Herbert Heywood, and Samuel S. Hinds (as Pa Bailey) were in It's a Wonderful Life.

Richard Long would reprise his role as oldest son Tom Kettle in the first official entry in the series, Ma and Pa Kettle.  Some of the Kettle kids are unnamed in this film but pick up names in MaPK:  thirteen-year-old (in '47) Eugene Persson becoming Ted, eleven-year-old Diane Florentine as Sara, eleven-year-old Teddy Infuhr as Benjamin, Gloria Moore (age unknown but probably teens) as Rosie, and George McDonald (age also unknown) as Henry.  Esther Dale and Isabel O'Madigan would reprise their roles as Mrs. Birdie Hicks and her mother.  (In case you're wondering, there was only a fourteen-year age difference between the actresses, and it shows.)   Bob Perry would be in MaPK, too.