After Percy Kilbride retired Universal Pictures tried to keep the Ma and Pa Kettle series going with just Marjorie Main. Here she teamed up with Arthur Hunnicutt, another actor known for playing rustics. Hunnicutt plays Uncle Sedge who is Kilbride's brother as Ma takes the kids to help out Hunnicutt in The Kettles In The Ozarks.
Hunnicutt has certainly got the Kettle work ethic down completely. He even has a couple of Indians to help on the farm just like Percy does. And he also does supervision from a hammock as Percy does. What he hasn't is a wife and 15 kids. But he does have Una Merkel who has an engagement to him longer than Adelaide had with Nathan Detroit.
Ted DeCorsia and Sid Tomack and associates want to rent Hunnicutt's barn and he's not above some easy money. Kind of a preposterous plot takes shape here. These are city slicker gangsters who want to make moonshine so they go to the Ozarks to do it. As they're horning in on the local illegal trade it gets a bit sticky for them and I do mean literally.
The film is more silly than funny at times though it has some good laughs. Those inebriated animals who get into the mash are a hoot. Hunnicutt and Main work well together, but the Kettle public just would not accept a substitute for Percy Kilbride.
Still Kettle fans will like it now.
Hunnicutt has certainly got the Kettle work ethic down completely. He even has a couple of Indians to help on the farm just like Percy does. And he also does supervision from a hammock as Percy does. What he hasn't is a wife and 15 kids. But he does have Una Merkel who has an engagement to him longer than Adelaide had with Nathan Detroit.
Ted DeCorsia and Sid Tomack and associates want to rent Hunnicutt's barn and he's not above some easy money. Kind of a preposterous plot takes shape here. These are city slicker gangsters who want to make moonshine so they go to the Ozarks to do it. As they're horning in on the local illegal trade it gets a bit sticky for them and I do mean literally.
The film is more silly than funny at times though it has some good laughs. Those inebriated animals who get into the mash are a hoot. Hunnicutt and Main work well together, but the Kettle public just would not accept a substitute for Percy Kilbride.
Still Kettle fans will like it now.