MA AND PA KETTLE BACK ON THE FARM

Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride

MA AND PA KETTLE BACK ON THE FARM (1951). Director: Edward Sedgwick.

Ma: "You're lazier than that hound dog we used to have."
Pa: "Which one?"
Ma: "The one who used to lean against the wall when she barked."

Ma and Pa Kettle (Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride) are back on the farm with their brood when Pa finds out "Mrs. Kettle" is pregnant. This of course, is his daughter-in-law Kim (Meg Randall), but Pa thinks his wife is going to deliver her sixteenth child! Once that is straightened out, the Kettles have to deal with Kim's parents. Her father, Jonathan (Ray Collins of Perry Mason) is a good sport but his wife, Elizabeth (Barbara Brown), is a termagant who wants her own way or else as far as her grandchild is concerned. Ma almost comes to blows with the woman, and does give a shove to the prune-faced nurse that is hired to look after the new arrival. Then there's the possibility that the Kettles' old property may be layered with uranium,

Bedroom hijinks with the Kettles

This third film featuring Main and Kilbride, who are absolutely wonderful, is as funny as the last one, with amusing dialogue and situations. One could argue that the flick is full of time-worn comedy devices, such as a frantic race in a car to catch a train and so on, but these things are still amusing, especially with Main and Kilbride on hand to liven things up. There's a great bit where Ma and Pa show pal Billy Reed (Emory Parnell) their own brand of arithmetic, which, incredibly, makes perfect sense as far as the Kettles are concerned. Richard Long is back as Tom Kettle, and Teddy Hart and Oliver Blake make a couple of politically incorrect but comical Indians.

Verdict: Lots of fun! ***.

MA AND PA KETTLE GO TO TOWN

Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride

MA AND PA KETTLE GO TO TOWN (1950). Director: Charles Lamont.

Pa Kettle (Percy Kilbride) wins another contest for a soda with the prize being an all-expenses paid trip to New York City! At first Pa and Ma Kettle (Marjorie Main) have trouble coming up with a babysitter for their fifteen rambunctious children, but along comes "Shotgun" Mike (Charles McGraw), a thief hiding out in town. Ma at least has some reservations about leaving the children with a complete stranger (although they prove to be more than he can handle), but she thinks he has a kind face, and off they go to Manhattan. There they encounter more problems with Mike's cronies, and discover some marital woes for son Tom (Richard Long) and daughter-in-law Kim (Meg Randall).

Richard Long and Meg Randall

Ma and Pa Kettle were introduced in The Egg and I and proved so popular that they got their own feature, Ma and Pa Kettle. This led into several sequels, of which this is the first. Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town is not only consistently cute and amusing, with great performances from Main and Kilbride and good work from the rest of the cast, but it avoids the cliche of New Yorkers being portrayed as horrible city slickers taking advantage of the Kettles; in fact, the pair actually like New York and the people who live there (although, of course, they're just as glad to get home). Ma and Pa exhibit sheer delight in seeing Manhattan from a cab as they stand up in a hole in the taxi's ceiling, and there's a great bit with Pa dropping a cup of water from the top of the RCA building and encountering that same water later on.

Verdict: Very cute picture. ***. 

MA AND PA KETTLE

Percy Kilbride and Marjorie Main

MA AND PA KETTLE (aka The Further Adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle/1949). Director: Charles Lamont.

"I still wish you'd fix the roof of the hen house. Would you like to sit in the broiling sun and have to lay eggs besides?" -- Ma to Pa.

Lovable hillbillies Ma and Pa Kettle (Percy Kilbride and Marjorie Main), who first appeared in The Egg and I as supporting characters, are in danger of being thrown out of their messy and cluttered house along with their sixteen children. Fortunately, Pa wins a tobacco slogan contest and he and his brood become the proud possessors of a new ultra-modern home. All Pa really wanted was a new pouch for his tobacco, and he isn't crazy about all of the new-fangled inventions in his swanky domicile. Then the jealous termagant Birdie (Esther Dale) and her mother (Isabel O'Madigan) maintain that Pa stole the slogan from somebody else ...

The Kettle children minus Tom

It's amazing that Pa has so many children when he hardly seems to have the energy to get out of bed -- maybe that's his problem! Along with Kilbride and Main, we have Dale and O'Madigan, as well as Richard Long [House on Haunted Hill] as eldest son Tom Kettle (who's invented a new incubator) , as holdovers from The Egg and I, and there's also a guest appearance by Ida Moore, reprising her role as a rather dotty old lady. (One could argue that it's not in the best of taste to present a lonely old woman who talks to her late husband in front of people as if he were still alive and make a joke of it.) Still, Ma and Pa Kettle is an amusing enough picture with excellent performances. Meg Randall [Without Warning!] plays a pretty writer who becomes Tom's love interest. There were no less than six sequels to this film, making it a fairly successful movie series of the forties and fifties.

Verdict: The two leads are funny characters and actors, and Main is especially winsome. **3/4. 

WITHOUT WARNING!

Adam Williams

WITHOUT WARNING! (1952). Director: Arnold Laven.

A pretty young woman with blond hair is stabbed to death in a motel room. No, it's not Psycho, it's Without Warning!, a thriller/police procedural that follows cops as they search for a man who murders women with garden shears. The killer, who is revealed early on, is gardener Carl Martin (Adam Williams), and Edward Binns [Young and Dangerous] is Lt. Hamilton, the chief investigator on the case. Carl tries to form a friendship with Jane Saunders (Meg Randall), the daughter of a guy who owns a nursery from where Carl gets his supplies. Although the film's climax is too protracted to be entirely effective, many other scenes are quite suspenseful, such as when Carl tries to get away when his car -- with a dead blonde inside -- is caught in the mud of an underpass as cops drive by. Adam Williams [Fear Strikes Out] was a busy actor of this period and this, his fourth film, was a rare starring role for him; he is excellent. Angela Stevens plays another victim. Only one of the murders is depicted, but not in a sensational or bloody manner. Arnold Laven also directed The Monster That Challenged the World.

Verdict: Moody and absorbing. ***.