FILM COMMENTARY - “300” & “Ma and Pa Kettle”

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Well, as promised, I got started on watching movies again...not that I ever stopped...but I did a serious, “Okay, get a disc, sit down, put it in the portable DVD player and watch...” talk to myself.  And, surprisingly, myself didn’t respond with “bacon.”

The next thing you’re going to ask  yourself is why “300” and why on God’s Earth “Ma and Pa Kettle?”  And why, for the love of Pete, back to back?

I had originally planned on going through my big black cases of DVDs but, instead, went to the book shelf and “300” came right before the collection of the “Adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle.”  So these would be first three.

“300” is a hyper-stylized film based on a graphic novel.  It looked and felt like a graphic novel.  In the featurettes on “Raging Bull” the sound guy talked about how much work it took to make the sound effect of flashing bulbs.  I wondered how much work it took to make the blood-letting squishy sound.  Did the SFX guy just have different squeeze bottles of ketchup, mustard, spicy mustard?  So many times did characters get gored, stabbed, stabbed, gored that the sound effect was abundantly used.  As was super-slow-motion killing and lots of yelling about being “Spartans” or something.  It was a film that I found so over-the-top that it was laughable...which may have been the point.  If I had any fault with the testosterone fueled chest-fest it’s that the evil bad guy Xerxes (which, surprisingly, sounds a lot like the sound effect of someone getting stabbed in the chest) doesn’t die a horrible terrible death.  He just gets a flesh-wound and a what will appear to be a really weird scar through his cheek and ear.  The fact that he’s flamboyantly gay could also give us all pause.  Still – there wasn’t much to recommend “300” other than the squishing sounds and its over-the-top-ness.  So...if you’re looking for that...step right up.

TOTALLY switching gears, I landed on “The Egg and I” and “Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town.”  Back in the 1930’s there was a gangster film called “Angels with Dirty Faces” and it co-starred a group of kids called “The Dead End Kids” – most of these actors weren’t kids but because of their chemistry and camaraderie, they were quickly relegated to B-Movie status into, literally, DOZENS of films.  So much the same with “Ma and Pa Kettle.”

As was typical for the 1930’s and 40’s you had your “A” pictures which had big stars and ran two hours and then you had your “B” pictures which had smaller starts and ran for 90 minutes or less.  “The Egg and I” didn’t star “Ma & Pa” – it starred Fred McMurray in all his “Father Knows Best” sweetness and Claudette Colbert who played his long-suffering wife.  Before you can say “Green Acres” Fred and Claudette are moving out of their lavish lifestyle into a broken down farm house.  This was the generation of the wife does whatever the husband wants, doesn’t speak up, doesn’t have dreams or goals or wishes, and just tries to make everyone happy.

The transition from city girl to farmer girl doesn’t go well, but it’s an overall sweet story that you know will end up with a “tied-in-a-knot” happy bow at the end.  What I mostly like about watching these films from the studio system era, are those actors you may only see in classic films.  The father of George Bailey in “Wonderful Life” plays a great sheriff in “Egg and I.”  And, I have to say, I was nearly moved to tears when after their farm nearly burns down, all the towns people come out and give them stuff to re-build.

In “Ma and Pa Kettle - Go to Town” – the second film on the disc, the “Ma & Pa Kettles” take over their own series of films.  The collection I have has eight of them but it looks like there were nine total.  “Ma” is played by Marjorie Main a big woman and, I’ve heard, one who spent most of her time in the closet during her Hollywood career.  “Pa” is played by Percy Kilbride.  These are “simple folk” whose way of looking at things undermines all us “city folk” who get all discombobulated with all the trappings around us.  Plus they have 15 kids.

“Go to Town” appears to be their second solo adventure as the film starts off in some new home with all the modern conveniences like TV(!) and Pa has won a trip to New York.  In the mean time they need to hire a baby-sitter and a bank robber with $100K in a bag, decides to babysit while Ma and Pa unwittingly take the bag to New York and hand off to his buddy.

Of course hijinks/confusions/stolen bags/more confusions occur until all is right in the end.  Jim “Thurston Howell, III” Backus played one of the gangsters hungry for the money.

One of the curious things about the Kettle films is that they, supposedly, live in Cape Flattery, WA and Seattle is 100 miles away.  Like that bit of a shout-out.  Plus, their oldest son goes to WSU – GO COUGS!

I doubt, over the next six films or so, that I’ll have anything much to write about as these are all just enjoyable time-wasters good for a hearty laugh and not a “squish” or blood-letting to be found.