Copyright 28 February 1951 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. A Universal-International picture. New York opening at the Capitol: 10 May 1951. U.S. release: April 1951. U.K. release through General Film Distributors on the lower half of a double bill: 8 January 1951 (sic). Australian release: 6 April 1951. 7,249 feet. 80½ minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A domestic comedy. The arrival of the Kettles' first grandson impels the family to return to the farm.
NOTES: Counting The Egg and I as number one, this is number four of the ten-picture "Ma and Pa Kettle" series.
COMMENT: No films better illustrate the vast difference in picture-going preferences between Britons on the one hand and Americans/Australians on the other than Ma and Pa Kettle. Whilst the British absolutely loathed the series, Australians followed the North Americans in welcoming Ma and Pa into their lives.
All eight of the entries in which Percy Kilbride played Pa were huge box-office successes in Australia. Mind you, they were certainly despised in carriage-trade enclaves, but in middle and working-class districts throughout the country, Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride became household heroes.
Despite their overwhelming popularity in Oz, Ma and Pa were never admired by the critics. The series in fact plumbed some awful depths, but this entry is probably the nadir. Poor old Pa is made out to be not only shiftless but more moronic than usual — his homespun aphorisms are entirely missing from this piece. He is merely the butt of some wheezy old routines stolen from Universal's Abbott and Costello pictures.
Marjorie Main also labors mightily to get a few chuckles from some very thin material. It's sad to see a fine actor like Ray Collins reduced to giving out instant information dialogue. The direction is strictly routine, the situations play up to the prejudices of the film's potential lower-class customers. Even the final slapstick car chase with its inevitable cross-cutting between speeded-up stand-ins on location and the main players comfortably ensconced in an obvious studio mock-up, is handled with little verve and no style.
Percy Kilbride and Emory Parnell do what they can to give the proceedings a bit of zest. That the film is not entirely a write-off is due mainly to their efforts. The rest of the players don't deserve mention. Even the credits are below par — the music score dismally fails to give the film a lift or a bounce, the photography is no more than serviceable and sometimes less, and the sets of course were still standing from previous Kettle pictures.
SYNOPSIS: A domestic comedy. The arrival of the Kettles' first grandson impels the family to return to the farm.
NOTES: Counting The Egg and I as number one, this is number four of the ten-picture "Ma and Pa Kettle" series.
COMMENT: No films better illustrate the vast difference in picture-going preferences between Britons on the one hand and Americans/Australians on the other than Ma and Pa Kettle. Whilst the British absolutely loathed the series, Australians followed the North Americans in welcoming Ma and Pa into their lives.
All eight of the entries in which Percy Kilbride played Pa were huge box-office successes in Australia. Mind you, they were certainly despised in carriage-trade enclaves, but in middle and working-class districts throughout the country, Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride became household heroes.
Despite their overwhelming popularity in Oz, Ma and Pa were never admired by the critics. The series in fact plumbed some awful depths, but this entry is probably the nadir. Poor old Pa is made out to be not only shiftless but more moronic than usual — his homespun aphorisms are entirely missing from this piece. He is merely the butt of some wheezy old routines stolen from Universal's Abbott and Costello pictures.
Marjorie Main also labors mightily to get a few chuckles from some very thin material. It's sad to see a fine actor like Ray Collins reduced to giving out instant information dialogue. The direction is strictly routine, the situations play up to the prejudices of the film's potential lower-class customers. Even the final slapstick car chase with its inevitable cross-cutting between speeded-up stand-ins on location and the main players comfortably ensconced in an obvious studio mock-up, is handled with little verve and no style.
Percy Kilbride and Emory Parnell do what they can to give the proceedings a bit of zest. That the film is not entirely a write-off is due mainly to their efforts. The rest of the players don't deserve mention. Even the credits are below par — the music score dismally fails to give the film a lift or a bounce, the photography is no more than serviceable and sometimes less, and the sets of course were still standing from previous Kettle pictures.