I sometimes wonder to myself if Edgar Kennedy, the character not the actor, is perhaps not so much a cheapskate, but rather very frugal with his money. As you may have noticed, any time there's a situation where he has to pay for something, he immediately looks for a way to avoid that and perform the service himself. Whether it's installing a water heater, fixing a radio, building a new wing on his house, whatever the trouble, Edgar always insists on taking care of it himself. Fortunately for him, the trouble doesn't always involve home repair. Take the time Vivian bought a truckload of pies for the charity bazaar. When Edgar found out the bill was $23.40, which would be the equivalent of $443 in 2022 dollars... egad, $443 dollars for about 23 pies? They better be REALLY good... he sneers at the baker, boasting that he could make a single apple pie for ten cents, as opposed to the sixty cents that the professional pies cost, which would equal about $11.86 in today's money. Since they've got an apple tree in the backyard, Edgar is confident he has all he needs to get started. Bet this is gonna be classic. So he climbs up his tree and begins picking apples, which isn't as easy as it sounds, especially when he kept dropping them right onto his neighbor, Charlie Hall, who's trying to relax in his backyard hammock. Growing fed up with Edgar Appleseed, Charlie returns one of the apples by way of pitching it like he were Bob Feller, and down came Edgar, apples and all. After getting back at his neighbor, by way of untying his hammock, Edgar repairs to the kitchen to start work on his pies, and I must say, he has a very ingenious way of preparing them. Using his wash tub, which I really hope he cleaned out beforehand, lest his pies taste like laundry soap, his adds the flour and shortening and uses it to make the dough, then flattens them with the mangler. As for the apples, he grounds them up via the meat grinder, and adds them to the individual pie tins, which he then covers with his flattened dough and tosses in the oven. You might expect an operation like this to blow up in his face at any minute, but surprisingly, it all goes very well. No big disasters in Edgar's kitchen, as it shows the minimum amount of effort one can go to make an apple pie, an American tradition. How they taste is a different matter, which we unfortunately never get to see. Now since Ed already had these appliances, I'm going to assume the ten cents he quoted himself for earlier was for the flour and shortening, as his apples were free. Well, the ones on his side of the fence were free anyway.
That's right, anybody who has a tree that towers over a property line will be familiar with the fight associated with who the fruit belongs to, regardless of whose property the tree is growing on. In this case, Edgar needs more apples for his next batch of pies, but the only ones available are on Charlie's side of the fence, and he refuses to let him gather any. Edgar then thinks to himself, "what would Robin Hood do?" Steal the apples and give them to the poor. Maybe, but would he accomplish that? With a bow and arrow, of course. Luckily, a kid was practicing with one nearby, which Edgar bought and then tried his very limited archery skill with spearing an apple from yonder branch. He successfully got it, but as expected, it landed on Charlie. Look, man, I know Edgar's been a pain your keister all day, but why not just let him gather all the apples he needs, then he'll go inside and leave you alone. Does that sound reasonable? I guess he doesn't think so. But while Edgar was horsing around with his neighbor, he neglected to notice that thick black smoke was billowing from his kitchen. Guess he left those pies in the oven too long, so that quick thinking bow and arrow boy signals the fire department. Meanwhile, remember those pies Vivian bought, despite Edgar's protests? She instructed the man to leave them at the neighbors', so when Charlie's wife asks him to deliver them to the Kennedys, he was only too glad. I think we all know what's coming. It had already escalated to pie fights between the men, so now there's a steady supply of ammunition, and just as the fire department arrive, they can get in on the fun too. Before they knew it, pies were flying everywhere, and the intended targets would more often than not be missed and an innocent bystander would get hit. It was a no holds barred, free-for-all. Remember Battle of the Century (1927) with Laurel and Hardy? Ironically, Charlie Hall was in that film too. Or even the finale to Half-Wits Holiday where the Stooges got into a big pie fight. So the battle raged on, pies, cakes and confectionaries were everywhere, men and women at each others' throats. Then, as if to quell the insanity, Charlie literally takes the cake and leads everyone to the man responsible for this melee, and thus crowns him with the cake, and all the leftover pies. Something tells me when Edgar gets the cleaning bill for every, single person's clothing, it will total much more than $23.40.
And so ends An Apple in his Eye, classic Kennedy hilarity. It isn't as mean-spirited as his other films, and once again, Edgar is the cause of his own dilemma. Had he simply paid the money, the bazaar could have gone on as planned, and all those lovely pies would have not have gone to waste. The dispute over an apple tree and property lines reminds me of a Married With Children episode where Al and Jefferson come to blows over an argument about an apple from the Bundys' tree falling into the D'Arcys' yard. A battle over property lines ensues, as each family destroys parts of one another's property until there's almost nothing left. I'm wondering if maybe Edgar and Charlie didn't have all those pies at their disposal, they might have done something similar. Anyway, the scene of Edgar making the pies was pretty clever, and as stated above, he causes the problems in this one, as Vivian stays out of his way, though it can be argued that his neighbor certainly made things harder for him. If you like Edgar Kennedy and Charlie Hall, and you like pie fights, look no further than An Apple in His Eye... and nothing in his head.
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