MA AND PA KETTLE GO TO TOWN (1950)

After winning a brand new house in part 2, Pa now wins an all-expenses paid trip to New York City for him and Ma. Problem is they can’t find anybody to babysit their 15 hellspawn. Fortune raises its head though once again when Pa bumps into a fleeing bank robber (Charles McGraw) who agrees to babysit the children. The only thing the bank robber wants in exchange is for Pa to give an “empty” bag to his brother in NYC. The bag actually holds 50,000 clams, 49,997 cabbages and 3 duckets. All kinds of wacky things happen next.

MA AND PA KETTLE GO TO TOWN holds up surprisingly well for its age. It’s also surprising just how much is packed into its 79-minute runtime! I mean there is all kinds of non-stop stuff being added to the story and even more impressive is…all of it is funny. One gag that cracked me up was when Pa was at the top of a skyscraper and he pours a cup of water off the side to see how long it would take to get to the bottom. Later on, him and Ma are walking down the sidewalk when the water hits Pa in the head and he remarks that it took longer that he thought. Haha. What the fuck is that joke? Classic. I also got a kick at out of how psychotic the children were. They were like fucking Jigsaw to everybody. They tricked one guy into scrubbing his face with sandpaper. They kidnapped two cops then tied them up and tried to kill them in a bonfire and another dude they bound upside-down and were about to dunk his head into a pot of boiling water!

Super-fast pace, tons of great jokes, strong cast, awesome vintage NYC sights, fun story. MAPKGTT might not be the kind of movie you can watch over and over, but for the occasional visit, it's a lot of fun.  I also really enjoyed seeing the normally serious Charles McGraw in a comical role.

Part 1 - The Egg and I (1947)
Part 2 - Ma and Pa Kettle (1949)
Part 4 - Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm (1951)
Part 5 - Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair (1952)
Part 6 - Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation (1953)
Part 7 - Ma and Pa Kettle at Home (1954)
Part 8 - Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1955)
Part 9 - The Kettles in the Ozarks (1956)
Part 10 - The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm (1957)

DEAD END (1937)

Interesting, but dated social commentary piece set in a NYC tenement block located right outside of a luxury apartment building.  Why anybody with enough money to buy a luxury condo would want to have their balcony overlooking a ghetto filled with nonstop screaming and shooting, I have no idea but that's what happens here.  Anyway, down in the Depression-era 'hood you got a bunch of teenage boys who yell and holler 24/7.  These fuckers never shut up.  All day long they talk shit about people and about how their gonna beat the crap out of everybody.  Then you got the sad sack adults who walk around all day like zombies.  One scumbag woman even steals a cookie from a baby!  There's also unemployed Joel McCrea who has the hots for a rich girl and Sylvia Sidney who has the hots for Joel McCrea.  Entering into this heavy drama are hoodlums Humphrey Bogart and Allen Jenkins.  Bogie is wanted for multiple murders, but risks coming out in the open to see his mom and ex-girlfriend.  Things don't go as planned and further drama unfolds in da 'hood.

The story for DEAD END is okay and the acting is passable, but it's all so dated and cliche that there's really no power left in it.  It's an interesting watch, from a historical point of view and/or from the career perspective of the stars (I was really into the scenes between Bogart and Claire Trevor since I knew they would work together again in KEY LARGO), but if you don't have the time to spend you'd be better off watching something like I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG or even GRAND HOTEL.

On a positive note: the Dead End Kids weren't as annoying here as they were in ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, there was a strong supporting cast (including Ward Bond, Marjorie Main, James Burke, Minor Watson, Charles Halton) and the set was very impressive.  Director William Wyler wanted to shoot the film on location in the slums of NYC, but Samuel Goldwyn said no and had set designer Richard Day recreate the waterfront location entirely on a sound stage.  Day ended up receiving a Oscar nomination for his work.