Last night, the teen team of Marcia Mae Jones and Jackie Moran was back, in "Barefoot Boy"(1938). Moran plays "Billy Whittaker", a country boy whose father, as the movie opens, is awaiting the release from prison of his friend "John Hale" (Ralph Morgan), who's finished a sentence for larceny. They seem an unlikely pair. Calvin Whittaker and his family are poor, John Hale is a millionaire. But Calvin, a farmer, supplies the Hales with eggs and milk. This is how they know each other. The plot aesthetic is similar to that of the Five Little Peppers, in which the worlds of rich and poor are combined, and as in that series, it's the poor folks who are virtuous and down to earth. John Hale has a son, "Kenneth" (Bradley Metcalfe), a world class brat who attends military school, and when they first meet, while Billy and his Dad are making a delivery to the Hale mansion, he challenges Billy to a fight, to show his superior class status, and because he knows ju-jitsu, which he uses to knock Billy on his butt. But Billy wrestles him down and they break the pail of eggs meant for the Hale kitchen. The result is that Mrs. Hale, a snob who's avoiding her husband's release from prison, throws the Whittakers off her property. "Get your brawling son away from my boy!".
When Calvin Whittaker returns home after being paroled by the Saintly Warden, we see that he's a very decent man. He hints that he is innocent of the crime he was convicted of, but tells Kenneth "we won't talk about that now." What concerns him is Kenneth's behavior. He sees that it's atrocious, and if it continues, he'll turn into a regular Meghan Markle. To prevent this, and because his wife doesn't want him in the house, he and Kenneth go to live on Calvin Whittaker's farm. So again, we have a similar setup to the Five Little Peppers, where the rich go to live with the poor.
Billy Whittaker has a crush on neighbor girl "Julia Blaine" (Marilyn Knowlden), but she puts a note in his mailbox saying she loves Kenneth. Billy is heartbroken, but then Marcia Mae Jones steps in. If she was a sweet sixteen young lady in the recently reviewed "Haunted House", she's a rough-and-tumble tomboy here. She likes Billy, and she knows a secret about Kenneth, that he took credit for rescuing her sister Julia from the lake one night, when it was really Billy who pulled her from the water. Marcia Mae sides with Billy, and becomes his confidante. She likes to scare the other kids in the neighborhood by reading ghost stories to them around a campfire, and the next thing you know, she's daring them to go inside an old log cabin in the middle of the night, which she says is a haunted house. Marcia Mae Jones and haunted houses seem to go together, but anyhow, what she's doing is showing Kenneth up. To prove he's a coward, she dares him to go in the log cabin first. She wants him to admit he took credit for Julia's rescue.
What none of the teens know (but we do) is that two crooks are using the cabin for a hideout. They're the ones who committed the crime that John Hale went to prison for. When Marcia Mae dares Kenneth to go into the log cabin, she follows him inside, to prove he's a chicken, and they stumble upon a 1000 dollar bond that was part of the larceny loot. Kenneth then uncovers the entire stash of bonds that the crooks have hidden in the cabin (40 Grand worth), but instead of telling his father, he keeps the find a secret, because he likes having his Dad beneath him as a convicted "jailbird". If he told the truth, it would come out that his Dad was framed, but Kenneth is too proud, too spoiled and too troubled, to do this. It is interesting to see that, in the context of a teenage comedy drama, made for depression audiences, that the subject of a developing sociopath is shown in Kenneth's worsening behavior. He's a rebel without a cause 19 years before James Dean, but at least Dean had a reason: his folks were "tearing (him) apart!" In Kenneth's case, it's his embarrassment that his Dad went to prison, but he's entitled by his mother.
But who needs psychoanalysis when Marcia Mae Jones is around? We've only just discovered her, but she's a kick, and she's already shown range, from being the ultimate 1940s Pretty Girl (in "Haunted House) to a tomboy who'll kick you in the shins.
The movie ends in potentially tragic circumstances, when Billy's dog (Terry, who played "Toto") dies in the haunted log cabin, and Billy himself gets shot by the criminals! But do you really think we're gonna have an unhappy ending in a movie like this? Two Big Thumbs Up for "Barefoot Boy" and a high recommendation. You have to hear the ghost stories as read by Marcia Mae Jones. The picture is very good. ////
The previous night's film was "Five Little Peppers in Trouble"(1940), the fourth and final entry in the series, and as always, the movie opens with Phronsie, the littlest Pepper, who is practicing a recitation for her kindergarten class. The other Peppers come home from school to check on the construction progress of the new, larger house Mr. King is building for them in Gusty Corners. If you remember, in the second movie he decided he wanted to live with them instead of moving back to his mansion on the hill. He also likes the ordinary people in town better than the snobs on the hill, which plays into the plot here, because after the kids all get home (following some hijinx where Davie Pepper and Martin the Butler fall into a paint trough), Mom and Mr. King inform them that they're all being sent away to boarding school. They aren't told why, but we know the reason: Jasper King's horrible Aunt Martha is back, demanding that he come to live with her. She's the worst snob of all, and is horrified that Jasper is living in a place like Gusty Corners. When her brother Mr. King (who's as rich as she is but is a down-to-earth person) tells her Jasper doesn't want to live with her and he won't turn him over, she threatens to get a court order.
The next day, two process servers show up, with papers for Mr. King. Butler Martin holds them off, stalling on the front steps while Mom and Mr. King put Jasper and the Pepper kids into Mr. King's limo. The chauffeur drives them away to the private school they'll be attending, but they haven't been told the reason they're being sent there: to hide Jasper from Aunt Martha. The middle boys try to get an answer out of Martin the night before they leave, with a rigged up scheme to scare him into revealing their destination. When they arrive at the school and meet the uptight headmistress, they know they are in for a disciplinary nightmare. And almost all the students are blue-blood brats; the girls are a bunch of Heathers who pick on Polly mercilessly, because she's viewed as poor and thus "less-than". She tries out for the school play at the urging of the drama teacher, the one nice lady on campus. Polly also has one friend, an English girl who sticks up for her.
But the mean girls have a ringleader, who is determined to get rid of Polly and her siblings. This girl is evil, and she works up a plan to drain the swimming pool and blame it on Polly. The Heathers steal one of her scarves, and leave it by the pool house, and the next morning when the headmistress gets the news, she blames the draining on Polly, as intended.
But the evil girl's plan goes wrong and a near tragedy occurs, which I can't reveal because it's the main twist of the plot. But you've really gotta love The Five Little Peppers, so Two Big Thumbs for this movie, and Two Huge for the series as a whole. We're gonna miss the Pepper family, and we wish they made more than four movies. "Five Peppers in Trouble" returns to the formula of sentiment and crisis that made the first two films so successful and heartwarming. The picture is razor sharp. ////
And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is James Gang once again, the album with Tommy Bolin called "Bang", and my late night listening is Mahler's 3rd by Bernstein. The next blog might be posted a little later at night on Wednesday, as I'll be going to see Roxy Music at The Forum. I'm excited: it'll be the first time I've seen them since 1976, at the Hollywood Palladium when I went with the late, great Mike B. Roxy Music will now hold the distinction, for me, of the band with the longest time span between the first time and most recent time I saw them. My first Roxy show was in March 1975, and it was also one of the first ten concerts I ever went to. So Wednesday's show will be 47 and 1/2 years later, imagine that. Almost a half century. All the band will be there, except Sir Edward Jobson, and they'll be beating Rick Wakeman's former record by one month. I first saw Rick in September 1974 at the Hollywood Bowl (my third concert ever), and most recently in February of this year. I think Rick will eventually reclaim the record, because I can't imagine Roxy Music touring again, but for now they're the champs. Stay tuned on Wednesday, and I'll see you late night. I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment