MA AND PA KETTLE AT THE FAIR

US, 1952, 78 minutes, Black and white.
Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, James Best, Lori Nelson, Esther Dale, Russell Simpson, Emory Parnell, Oliver Brady.
Directed by Charles Barton.

Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair is the fourth in the series of Ma and Pa Kettle films.
This time the focus is quite domestic. Ma and Pa Kettle seem to be at home in the house which they won in the first film as well as back on the farm. Now Lori Nelson plays Rosie, the next of the children to graduate from high school and prepare to go to college. The big problem in this film is having the money to pay her tuition.
The central focus is the local fair. In the past, Ma and Birdie Hicks had been particularly competitive in the area of baking bread and making jams. This is also important for this film. The fair has also introduced harness racing and after the Kettle’s horse dies, Pa is tricked into buying an old nag. The horse was frightened by a rattlesnake, she rears and races at any sound which reminds her of this. It is clear that she is going to be a winner at the fair.
There is a lot of the usual domestic comedy, wisecracks, deadpan from Pa, his still being lazy and relying on his Indian friends to do all the work, including running round the track to time them instead of the horse. The children are raucous and play tricks. This is what we expect from the Kettle films. There is plenty of slapstick humour.
Pa buys some cement and it is put in the same container as flour, which means that Ma’s bread is heavy and is thrown out - and eaten by the star horses for the harness race, which means that Ma and Pa eventually come under suspicion and are arrested for interdering with the horses. Ma has more success with the jam and wins the competition against Birdie Hicks. However, Pa has already invested her winnings with Billy Reed, the store owner, who appears in most of the films, and with the owner of the horse, a percentage of Ma’s winnings.
Everything rests on Pa’s success in the race to get the money for Rosie’s tuition. In the meantime, Rosie is keeping company with Marvin, James Best in an early role, the son of the owner of the top horses.
There are a lot of shenanigans about betting for the winner of the harness race, especially when the favourite collapses after eating the cement bread. Nearly everybody bets on Birdie Hicks’s horse. During the race, when it appears that Pa will win on his horse, Ma learns from Billy Reed that the whole town has bet on Birdie’s horse and will be bankrupt if it loses. The good-natured Ma takes a garter and a pebble and fires at the horse so that Pa will lose and the town will prosper. Even though they are in jail, expecting hanging, they are released because the town is grateful for what Ma did. In an uncharacteristic gesture, Birdie Hicks gives her winnings to Ma to pay for Rosie’s tuition.
By this time, audiences are used to the Kettle family and enjoy their company.