MA AND PA KETTLE BACK ON THE FARM

US, 1950,
Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Richard Long, Meg Randall, Ray Collins, Emory Parnell, Oliver Brady.
Directed by Edward Ludwig.

Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm is the follow-up to Ma and Pa Kettle. The success of the original film ensured a sequel, which led to another sequel, and to many others during the 1950s. The Kettles are a symbol of the kind of very popular comedy of the times, which in later decades would be a television series.
The initial film established the family with the 15 children. They can still be raucous. It also established Marjorie Main as the loud, not-so-well-educated, but very practical Ma. And she has a heart of gold, though Birdie Hicks, her neighbour in so many films, strains the tolerance. In this film it is strained even further by the mother of Kim, her daughter-in-law. Percy Kilbride had established the style, dead-pan nonchalance, of Pa Kettle. Screenplays of the films always capitalise on his not being very affected by what is going on around him, of his laziness and always wanting a rest, of his reliance on Geoduck and Crowbar, his Indian friends, to do all the work.
The Kettles are established in their very modern home, which they won in the first film. However, they still have their farm.
The centre of the film is the pregnancy of Kim, the concern of Tom, the older son of the Kettles, and jokes about pregnancy and birth. There is a rather long joke when Pa and the Indians are at Billy Reed’s store, sampling pipe tobacco before they buy it, if ever they do. Billy Reed is the smiling storekeeper who appears in many of the films. There is a phone call for Pa to go to the hospital and he interprets the situation as Ma being pregnant and this is played out for quite awhile.
But the difference in the film is the arrival of Kim’s parents from Boston. They seem to be a very snooty couple, especially the mother, Elizabeth Parker. She is preoccupied with hygiene, another theme from the earlier film. Hygiene is not readily associated with the Kettles. She takes charge at home, employing a nurse, instructing no one to go near the baby without a mask… Needless to say, the Kettles rebel. But they also go back to the original farm leaving the Parkers at home.
There is another subplot concerning the possibility of uranium on the farm, people trying to cheat Pa out of ownership of the farm because he has not paid back taxes, or any taxes. Whenever Pa goes near something, there is a reaction which people interpret as radiation. Even an expert comes. Mr. Parker rather enjoys his staying with the Kettles, and even the youngsters’ tricks. He realises he has been henpecked all his marriage and begins to react. However, there is no uranium, only overalls that were affected by atomic bomb tests.
Of course, it builds up to a confrontation between the Parkers and the Kettles. Kim also has to make choices. She is influenced by her mother and they both get the train back to Boston while her father asserts himself, very strongly, against his wife. They all gang up together in the car to pursue the train to stop Mrs. Parker and Kim and bring them back. This leads to some comedy of the drive, the hazards in the desert, Pa parking in the train’s path and not moving until everybody is off. Ma is moved when she hears Mrs. Parker weeping and the two are trapped on the train but persuading the guard and to halt the train and let them off, their working one of the carriages on the rails. Mrs. Parker becomes dependent on Ma and everybody is happily united.
Mr. Parker enjoys Ma’s cooking and even Elizabeth Parker emulates Ma’s voice, at the end of the film, for the children to ‘come and get it’.