Ma and Pa In Paris, Mais Oui

Wheels up, y’all…

One of the fixtures of nineteen fifties cinema was the Ma and Pa Kettle series. My parents grew up on it, they introduced me to it, I grew up on it, and I’ve introduced it to my son. These movies have their own brand of charm. Marjorie Main plays herself except that she’s also the mother to fifteen children, and one of the running gags of the series was Ma summoning the whole crowd to meals by bellowing, “COME AND GET IT!”

Ma has quite a time keeping Pa in line. Played by Percy Kilbride for most of the series, Pa is a loveable bum who is pretty leisurely about life. Put it this way: When something falls apart, he always generally remarks, “I’m gonna fix that one of these days.” And his method of saying grace is tipping his bowler and saying, “Much obliged for everything.”

The Kettles are fish out of water, they like it, and the public has liked them for almost eighty years.

The characters made their debut in the 1947 movie, The Egg and I, which starred Claudette Colbert and Fred McMurray, and while the Kettles were mostly in the background, story-wise, they made a huge impression. It didn’t take long for Universal to get going on The Further Adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle, which, by the way, is my favorite of the series, and after that there was a new Kettle film every year until 1957.

The series was pretty insular for the most part, relying on plenty of recurring characters and bits, but it occasionally went outside the formula, such as in 1953’s Ma and Pa Kettle On Vacation.

The movie opens at the Kettles’ fancy house in town, where Pa (Percy Kilbride) is making breakfast for Ma. He has his own way of doing it, too; among other hacks he shapes donuts on a baseball bat and then slides them into the deep fryer. While on his way upstairs the mailman drops a letter off and Pa sticks it on the breakfast tray.

While Pa eats Ma’s breakfast, they find out their son’s in-laws, Jonathan (Ray Collins) and Elizabeth (Barbara Brown) have invited them to go with them to Paris, France and they won’t take no for an answer. So after a brief montage involving passports and inoculations, not to mention finding an intrepid baby-sitter for their remaining children, they’re off. Paris may never be the same.

Pa and Ma aren’t the most seasoned travelers, but they do all right; well, it most respects. When Pa goes to an empty seat at the back of the plane for a smoke, he meets a guy named Adolph Wade (Peter Brocco) who asks him to hold a letter he’s carrying and deliver it to him at his hotel tomorrow night at eight o’clock. His reason? Frightful dizzy spells because of shell shock he received during the First World War. He doesn’t want to misplace the letter.

Yep. All the red flags. Just say no, Pa.

Pa doesn’t say no, although he’s slightly skeptical at the outset. He’s pretty easy to convince, though, and all the Parisians know it. A guy tries to sell him some girly postcards for a dollar in the hotel lobby and the gift shop lady dabs some perfume on him that she claims will make him the most desirable man in Paris. Pa thinks the perfume’s worked when a group of bobby-soxers come in and start swooning, but they’re only there to see Frank Sinatra.

It doesn’t matter, though, because there’s plenty to do in Paris, not the least of which is Ma getting a makeover, a floor show at the hotel restaurant, an exploration into the peculiarities of French cuisine (champagne, escargot and caviar, anyone?), and plenty of French perfume.

Oh, and then there’s the matter of Mr. Wade’s letter, which Pa dutifully tries to deliver to Mr. Wade at eight o’clock. Only problem is, Mr. Wade turns up dead in the Seine and a father and daughter, Cyrus (Sig Ruman) and Inez Kraft (Bodil Miller) are suddenly very present and very solicitous. Fortunately, Jonathan is pretty savvy, and the group, minus the Krafts, head straight for the American Consulate, where they find out the Krafts are part of a big spy network.

There’s not much guessing as to how this will turn out. The bigger question is, of course, what state the house will be in and the level of baby-sitter’s sanity when Ma and Pa finally make it home from Paris.

Straight up, Ma and Pa Kettle On Vacation is a cute, fun movie that probably couldn’t be made today, namely because of Pa’s Native American friends, Geoduck and Crowbar, and the squaw they find to take care of the Kettle brood. These folks aren’t portrayed as dumb or subservient, exactly, but the broken English is probably a no-no.

Other than that, it’s cool seeing Ma and Pa get outside of their comfort zones and away from the kids for a little bit, although they’re very much about being themselves no matter where they are. Ma’s preference for buttermilk over champagne, for instance, is completely in character.

The critics said various forms of meh (Photoplay called the movie “juicy, unabashed corn”), but the public, of course, enjoyed the film and film exhibitors had fun figuring out how to promote it, because a new Ma and Pa Kettle film was a big event. One theater owner in Ashtabula, Ohio didn’t have to work too hard, though, as, according to the May 4, 1953 edition of Film Bulletin, a guy who looked at least somewhat like Pa just happened to live in town.

No matter what form the promotion took, the Ma and Pa Kettle franchise ended up grossing over a billion dollars in today’s money for Universal and saved them from bankruptcy. Thankfully, these films still mostly hold up today despite their slightly dated elements.

For more of the Celluloid Road Trip Blogathon, please see Annette at Hometowns To Hollywood. Thanks for hosting this, Annette–it was fun. Thanks for reading, all, and see you on Saturday for another review…

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Ma and Pa Kettle On Vacation is available on DVD from Amazon.

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