“Believe me, I agree, you'll never get bored with winning…”

Well, the number of entries for Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s “Cry Uncle” giveaway wasn’t quite as robust as those for the previous “Mysterious Matters” contest…truth be told, I wasn’t really too surprised because simply on an anecdotal basis, I know there are far more Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar fans than those who are stoked by an episode of Let George Do It.  (I will say this: we had more entries than the “Merry Mix-ups” giveaway.  I promise I will give these away soon.)  As always, I enjoy having people enter these contests of swag and wish I could bestow a set upon everyone who e-mailed me.  But the Random.org gods have decreed that the three winners are Kathleen G., Roger S…and longtime TDOY reader/commenter Mike “Mr. Television” Galbreath.  (I didn’t protect Mr. TV’s identity because he loves when I mention him on the blog.)

What else do I have available from the “Lake of Largesse”?  Well, let’s continue with our private eye theme: I have two copies of Radio Spirits’ recent The Adventures of the Falcon release, Shakedown, to hand out to two random members of the TDOY faithful.  You’ll no doubt read all about this in the liner notes (well, if you’re lucky enough to win a copy) but I need to stress that while the success of the George Sanders-Tom Conway feature films inspired a radio version…the “Falcon” on radio was a different detective, answering to “Michael Waring.”  “Always ready with a hand for oppressed men, and an eye for repressed women” as the opening to the program informed us, a series that enjoyed a good healthy radio run over various networks from 1943 to 1954.  A number of actors played The Falcon during that span of time, including Berry Kroeger and Les Tremayne…but The Falcon on the broadcasts featured on Shakedown (an 8-CD set originally priced at $31.95) is none other than Les Damon (whom you might also know as one of the thesps who played Nick Charles on radio’s The Adventures of the Thin Man), with character great Ken Lynch assisting as Sergeant Corbett (Charles Webster is also heard as Corbett).

So it pretty much works the same as it did last time: any U.S. resident is welcome to enter for a chance to win one of these sets (keep in mind that I ask politely if you’ve won anything in the last thirty days to please beg off and allow others to have an opportunity to win free stuff); just drop me an e-mail at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com with “Shakedown” in the subject header (now I’ll have that terrible Bob Seger song in my head for the rest of the day).  The deadline is next Sunday night (April 3) at 11:59pm EDT, whereupon I will once again summon the Random.org gods and pick two lucky winners.  Once again, heartiest congratulations to the “Cry Uncle” winners and remember…Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

I got plenty of Sutton

When future Academy Award-winning director George Stevens arrived at Universal Pictures in 1932, he was already a seasoned motion picture veteran—having worked for many years at the “Lot of Fun,” the Hal Roach Studios, where he served as a writer, cinematographer and director on many of Roach’s classic two-reel comedies.  Stevens left Roach for bigger opportunities…but at Universal, he pretty much did what he did at his former studio, direct two-reel comedies featuring the likes of Frank Albertson, Henry Armetta and James “Is zat so?” Gleason.  (Though Universal is where George held the reins on his feature film debut, The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble.)

Stevens’ stint with Universal lasted only a year before he gravitated to R-K-O, which afforded him many more opportunities in the feature film department: he directed two of Wheeler & Woolsey’s finest comedies, Kentucky Kernels (1934) and The Nitwits (1935), and later made his mark with such classics as Alice Adams (1935), A Damsel in Distress (1937), and Gunga Din (1939).  But before he could do that…it was back to the world of two-reelers.  George receives directorial credit on several of Edgar Kennedy’s “Average Man” comedies (Quiet Please, Grin and Bear It) …not to mention a pair of Tom Kennedy (no relation to Edgar) shorts.  Stevens also instituted a short-lived series that was quite reminiscent of some of the comedies he helmed in the Roach “Boy Friends” franchise (High Gear, Air Tight, Mama Loves Papa) that was known as “The Blondes and the Redheads.”

The series is also referred to in reference books as “The Blonde and the Redhead”—which makes a bit more sense, as there were only two women starring in the shorts.  The platinum blonde was baby-voiced Carol Tevis, while the gal with the crimson tresses (the common sense dame) was played by June Brewster…who left the series after the first five shorts and was replaced by Dorothy Granger, a Boy Friends alumnus.  Stevens also used another Boy Friends player in the Blondes and Redheads comedies, Grady “Alabam” Sutton, who in most of the shorts was the unlikely object of affection of the two women.

In his book Selected Short Subjects (a.k.a. The Great Movie Shorts), Leonard Maltin has effusive praise for the inaugural Blondes and Redheads effort, Flirting in the Park (1933)—which I have not had the pleasure of seeing but is available (along with three other B&R shorts) from Encore Home Video as part of their “R-K-O Comedy Classics” collection.  I’m sure Encore puts out a nice product…but the tariff on these shorts is a bit out of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s price range (I know you think blogging is the glamorous life…but it’s anything but, I assure you).  So I had to go with a collection in keeping with the TDOY budget: a set of four B&R shorts from Alpha Video at Oldies.com (it costs me a five-spot) culled from the collection of “The Movie Man,” John Carpenter.  (Full disclosure: Mr. Carpenter is a Facebook friend.)

Buying product from Alpha is always a hit-or-miss affair (I’ve heard some unpleasant stories about how they operate…but now is not the time or place) so I was pleasantly surprised with the content on this DVD, which kicks off with the third short in the B&R series, The Undie-World (1934).  This one is a lot of fun: Grady plays a violinist hired by mobster Guinn “Big Boy” Williams (who also worked quite a bit at the Roach studios, notably in the 1936 feature Kelly the Second) to ply his trade while Williams attempts to fool June and Carol (who live in an apartment across the way) that he’s the virtuoso.  Complications set in when June and Grady have an encounter in the hallway (upon seeing her, he’s a smitten kitten), and she’s convinced he’s the gangster—not “Big Boy” (who answers to “Bugsy McHugh” in the short).

Bugsy and Grady “double-date” with June and Carol, taking them to a “tea room” (where they encounter Roach Studio stalwarts Charlie Hall and Tiny Sandford—not to mention serials/B-Western veteran Ernie Adams)—with Bugsy a little ticked at Grady for becoming a serious rival for June’s affections (Grady also accidentally shot Bugsy in the foot, which doesn’t help his disposition any).  He asks several of his fellow gangsters seated at a nearby table to keep an eye on Grady…and then tells Grady that he paid one of the men to take a sock on the jaw from Grady in order to impress June.  You can probably guess where this is going: the mobsters take a powder and another gang, led by Palermo (Dewey Robinson), makes itself at home.  The twist is that when Grady slugs Palermo, Palermo congratulates the creampuff for his Moxie…and he asks Grady (after seeing his violin case) to help “put one of his boys to sleep.”

The Undie-World has some first-rate farcical situations and slapstick gags—not to mention some snappy comic dialogue (courtesy of Jack Townley and Jean Yarborough):

GRADY: Excuse me…I was detained by a misadventure in the hall…

BUGSY: Miss who?

GRADY: I was delayed by a mishap…

BUGSY: Never mind the dames…let’s get down to business…

As enjoyable as Undie-World is, the second short on this DVD (the fourth in the series) is even better: Rough Necking (1934) casts June and Carol as sisters, and June is gaga for Grady despite her father’s (Spencer Charters) objections.  Father orders June confined to quarters, and hires a formidable female detective (who else but Hope Emerson?) to keep watch over her.  Carol, on the other hand, convinces Grady to help her put Madame Bodyguard out of commission…and then Grady will take her place.

Despite Grady’s nancy boy persona in movies (a character in one of the shorts refers to him as “Lollypop”), you wouldn’t think he could pull off the female masquerade…but he does, even to the point where June and Carol’s pop starts to flirt with him.  The fun begins when an old friend of Father’s (Roach veteran Fred Kelsey) and his idiot son (George Chandler) stop by for a visit…and discussion soon gets around to a “merger” between June and the Idiot (apparently she was betrothed when the two were kids).  So Carol gets Father out of the way, and Grady now impersonates June…and again, because myopia ran rampant in those old days of the flickers, Junior falls for Grady’s charms.  There’s some exceptional slapstick in Rough Necking (both Charters and Sutton execute funny slides down the stair bannister) but for me the laugh-out-loud moment finds Charters offering Grady-in-drag a swig of some of “the good stuff” and Grady, breaking female character for a few seconds, declares “I need it!”  Townley also co-wrote the story for this one, with an assist from yet another Hal Roach veteran, Fred Guiol.

The Dancing Millionaire (1934) is the only short on this DVD not directed by George Stevens—Sam White, brother of Columbia shorts department head Jules White, sits in the director’s chair and does a nice job with a story by Guiol, Townley and Leslie Goodwins (the future director of R-K-O’s “Mexican Spitfire” series).  Grady is the titular character (“Ronnie Graff”), who meets up with Carol and series newcomer Dorothy Granger at a dance studio after a run-in with a wrestler named Crusher McGee (Tom Kennedy).  Graff has McGee arrested and placed in the pokey…but McGee and his manager (Harry Bowen) get out and head for the same nightclub where Graff and his chauffeur (Jack Mulhall) have taken the girls.  This necessitates that Dorothy and Carol switch back-and-forth between two tables (“Pardon us while we powder our nose,” Dorothy says when they excuse themselves) so as not to alert Crusher to Ronnie’s presence—supplemented with a subplot in which Dorothy drops an engagement ring into a soup tureen.  Having Kennedy in this one amps up the enjoyment (what can I say—I’m a fan of Tom), but comedy veterans like Jack Duffy, Billy Franey and Spec O’Donnell also make appearances…as does Jack Rice as the dance studio manager (Rice would soon find steady employment in the Edgar Kennedy shorts as Edgar’s obnoxious brother-in-law).

The fourth and final two-reeler on the Blondes and Redheads DVD is Ocean Swells (1934)—the penultimate short in the series directed by Stevens and the first to feature Granger.  It’s probably the weakest of the bunch from the DVD, though it does have its moments; in this simple story of Dorothy, Carol and their “Auntie” (Zeffie Tilbury, the “Grandma” in the Our Gang comedy Second Childhood) vacationing at Catalina (before having to return to their dreary jobs in a laundry), the girls meet “wealthy” Bunny De Puyster III (Grady) and Hopping B. Hoppy Jr (Cully Richards).  The gentlemen are actually swabbies on a yacht; while the ladies are mistaken for the mother and daughters of the boat’s captain (Edgar Dearing).  The girls decide to throw a party on board…and then the captain comes back unexpectedly (the interaction between him and his “mother” is hysterical).  The problem with Swells is that it’s a little disjointed, plot-wise, (I’m not sure if it’s the print or the way it was actually written) but there’s still plenty of funny business—the highlight is a spill captain’s assistant Landers Stevens takes on deck after stepping on a bar of soap.  (The wrap-up on this one is kind of sweet, too.)

Stevens’ final B&R short was Hunger Pains (1935; another one I’d like to see), which also gets a nice write-up by Maltin in Selected Short Subjects—then it was off to feature films for him fulltime (and Oscars for A Place in the Sun [1951] and Giant [1956]).  After two more entries, Wig-Wag (1935; Sam White) and Pickled Peppers (1935; Ben Holmes), R-K-O decided to end the series…which was a curious thing, since the Blondes and Redheads comedies offered a nice contrast to the Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol two-reelers (both of which had a tendency to work the marital comedy formula to death).  Still, I was genuinely surprised by the hefty laugh quotient on these short subjects, and I’d highly recommend them for fans of two-reel comedies.

Now that’s more like it!

There’s no getting around it—the latest Thrilling Days of Yesteryear giveaway for two “Mysterious Matters” collections of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar broadcasts (courtesy of Radio Spirits) generated the largest response (nearly forty) in entries in the eleven years (and counting) since the ol’ blog has been in existence.  I kind of figured “the man with the action packed expense account” would rack up a large number of entrants, seeing as the previous record holder at TDOY was another Johnny Dollar collection, Confidential.

As always, I would love to be able to give out copies to everyone who entered…but as the saying goes, there can be only one two.  The random number generator at Random.org has made its decision, and the winners are jtonner and longtime TDOY reader-commenter Dan (of the Missouri Dans).  I am currently in e-mail communication with our lucky prize recipients to lock in their snail mail information, and I hope to have these out to them sometime next week (I had originally set my sights on Monday, but Father Shreve has informed me that he plans to have the family truckster maintenanced on that same day.  Le sigh.)  Also, too; I had a number of people lament losing out on The Couple Next Door: Merry Mix-ups promotion…so I’ve decided to hang onto those sets and give them out a little later down the road.

But here’s good news: I have more swag to bestow!  And by the merest of coinky-dinks, it’s related to YTJD in a way.  Before he took on the role of “America’s favorite freelance investigator,” actor Bob Bailey was the star of an underrated Mutual detective drama entitled Let George Do It.  Listening to Bailey’s portrayal of private shamus George Valentine, you can detect the underpinnings of the lightheartedly wry style he would bring to Dollar, and because I contributed the notes to Radio Spirits’ latest George release, Cry Uncle, I have not one…not two…but three of these sets to hand out to lucky members of the TDOY faithful.

Also starring Frances Robinson (as George’s gal Friday Claire “Brooksie” Brooks—and yes, I know that’s not Frances in the photo upper right; that’s from when Virginia Gregg played “Brooksie”) and Wally Maher (as Lieutenant Riley), these Let George Do It broadcasts—sixteen in total—comprise an 8-CD set (which retails for $31.95) that provide cracking good crime drama entertainment for any old-time radio fan.  To enter the contest, just drop me an e-mail at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com with “Cry Uncle” in the subject header, and I’ll generate three winners with Random.org when the giveaway ends.  The deadline for entries is 11:59 EDT Saturday, March 26…and it’s restricted to U.S. residents only.  (Sorry, folks—I’m no longer the man with the action-packed shipping funds to spend.)  If you’ve already won something on the blog, I ask that you wait thirty days before trying your luck again to be democratic and give everyone else a crack at the freebies.

Remember: when you enter this contest, write full details.  (A little Let George Do It joke for those in the audience.)  Get started on those entries, because Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

Is this mike on?

Well, this would be the time on the blog where I announce the winners in the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear Merry Mix-Ups giveaway: two sets containing 1958 and 1959 broadcasts of the radio sitcom The Couple Next Door, courtesy of Radio Spirits.  Unfortunately, there were no winners…because there were no entrants.  This, by the way, isn’t the first time this has happened at TDOY.  Back in January 2011, the good people at Columbia Home Video were generous enough to provide me with a DVD/Blu-ray combo of The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), which I offered as a fabulous prize to some lucky member of the TDOY faithful.  The response?  Nothin’, as Yukon Cornelius might say.  (I don’t even know what happened to the prize; I probably hawked it on eBay if past performance is any indication.)

I’ve been letting a number of theories swirl around in my cranium (where there’s plenty of room) as to the non-response to the giveaway.  First, no one likes The Couple Next Door.  (This is why I tried to give it a nice build-up…and seriously, you’re missing out on a wonderful program.)  Or, it could be that with the dearth of posting around TDOY of late, nobody’s been back lately to see if there has been any activity.  (Which is the theory I’m leaning toward.)  But, hey—there’s no use crying over spilled leche.  We’ll simply move on to our next giveaway.

Last month at the Radio Spirits blog, we celebrated the 67th anniversary of the premiere of radio’s Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar…and to do something a little different from the previous essay I wrote on the show for Dollar’s 65th (“The Happy Anniversary Matter”), editor Karen Lerner allowed me to flex my creative muscles and concoct a little short story entitled “The Older-and-No-Wiser Matter.”  (I used to write a good deal of fiction back in the day, so I had a lot of fun with it.)  Two of the Johnny Dollar collections for which I contributed liner notes were mentioned in the post: Confidential and RS’ newest release, Mysterious Matters—which features broadcasts by six actors who played “America’s favorite fabulous freelance investigator”: Charles Russell, Edmond O’Brien, John Lund, Bob Bailey, Bob Readick, and Mandel Kramer.

So you can see where this is going.  I have two sets of Mysterious Matters to give away (a 10-CD set valued at $39.98) to two lucky blog readers living in the U.S.A…and if you want to be considered for the contest, just e-mail me at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com with “Mysterious Matters” in the subject header.  The entry period will run until Friday, March 18 at 11:59 EDT…and after choosing the winners via Random.org, I will announce who the lucky people are on Saturday (March 19) and get their prizes out to them posthaste.

I need to issue a caveat here.  When Radio Spirits sent me this big honkin’ box of giveaway swag, they mailed it to my old Rancho Yesteryear address…which necessitated forwarding to the new digs here at Castle Yesteryear.  I don’t think the post office was particularly happy about this, because the box arrived in rather questionable condition (hey—it was heavy, so I kind of can’t blame them for kicking it around and then disguising their fun with duct tape).  As I was pulling sets out of the box, a number of them rattled…so I believe there may have been a jostling of the contents during their journey to Pixley Winterville.  (I am hoping this will not impact any of the recordings in a major way.)

Also, too; if I’m feeling generous, I just might smuggle in these sets of The Couple Next Door that I couldn’t give away…so bevare!  Take care!  And remember: Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

“Peg…it will come back to you…”

First off…many thanks to those of you who sent my mother best wishes on her recuperating from her recent experience with the surgeon’s scalpel.  I would like to honestly say she was overwhelmed by your kind thoughts…but her reaction was more along the lines of “Stop writing about me on your blog, damn it!”

One of the fabulous perks I receive as a result of my liner note contributions to Radio Spirits old-time radio collections—besides a little jingle in my pocket so that I might keep creditors at bay, of course—is that RS usually sends me a few gratis copies of the sets on which I’ve worked.  I usually keep one for myself, and then either hook up a friend with one or give them out as fabulous prizes to reward those people patient when the blog fields at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear fall fallow.

The last giveaway I did here on the blog was for a Don Rickles DVD back in October…so what do you say to a chance to win a copy of the Radio Spirits release The Couple Next Door: Merry Mix-Ups?  For those of you not familiar with the program…here’s a little background:

Actress-writer Margaret Frances “Peg” Lynch—who, sadly, was summoned to the Great Audition Room back in July of 2015 at the age of 98—was one of the most amazing individuals employed during Radio’s Golden Age.  Her website rightfully boasts that she was “the lady who invented sitcom”—that sitcom being The Private Lives of Ethel and Albert, which premiered over NBC Blue on May 29, 1944 (an earlier version had appeared previously in three-minute installments over several local stations at which she was employed).  It was a simple, character-based sitcom: Peg played Ethel Arbuckle (Lynch stepped in when the network brass didn’t think any of the actresses who auditioned were suitable), a typical housewife married to a typical husband in the form of Albert Arbuckle.  Albert was played initially by Richard Widmark, who eventually moved on to a stage and film careet, and he was replaced by Alan Bunce…whose chemistry with Peg was quite convincing.

Ethel and Albert spent most of its run on radio as a five-day-a-week quarter hour—it was expanded to a half-hour in its final season before it was cancelled on August 28, 1950.  After that, it became one of the boob tube’s early successes—first as a fifteen-minute segment on Kate Smith’s variety show, and then as a half-hour series that aired on all three of the majors (ABC, CBS and NBC) from 1953 to 1956.  Lynch went on record as not being overly fond of the TV Ethel and Albert (“…I always felt it spoiled my timing…I would have to hold up for the laugh…”) so when she got an opportunity to revive her creation for CBS Radio beginning in December of 1957 she leapt at the chance.  The only snag was that because she had signed away the rights to “Ethel and Albert” sometime ago, she would have to rename the new series The Couple Next Door.

The Couple Next Door is a quirky little situation comedy in the mold of Vic & Sade (without the engaging eccentricity) and Lum ‘n’ Abner (without the bucolic wackiness).  I only had a passing familiarity with the series before I was asked to contribute liner notes, but in listening to the shows it wasn’t long before Couple Next Door worked its magic on me.  What I enjoy so thoroughly about Peg Lynch’s writing is that it doesn’t come off as writing; the dialogue sounds perfectly natural to the ear—it’s as if you caught yourself eavesdropping on a neighbor couple’s conversation by accident.  Several of the broadcasts in the Merry Mix-Ups collection are Yuletide-themed; one of the funniest is an outing that finds Mr. Piper (Bunce) having to drop off a parcel at the post office and being stymied by the nitpicky regulations that the clerk insists must be followed to the letter before it can be sent on its way.  (You have no idea how much I identified with his situation.)

I have two copies of The Couple Next Door: Merry Mix-Ups to give to two lucky members of the TDOY faithful.  It’s a six-CD set containing twenty-four broadcasts from 1958 and 1959 (retail value: $24.95), and if you’re interested in winning one all you have to do is drop me an e-mail at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com with “Merry Mix-Ups” in the subject header (you can add something witty if you like…though I should warn you that the winners of this giveaway will be determined by the old random number generator at Random.org).  The contest will end next Thursday, March 10 at 11:59pm EST, and once the winners have been chosen they will be notified of just how very fortunate they are.  (Oh, and I will get their prizes out as soon as possible.)

I need to issue a couple of caveats: 1) this promotion is limited to U.S. residents only.  You know I love the people from the Great White North (sheesh—I sound like Donald J. Drumpf: “I have a great relationship with the Canadians”) but unfortunately when I send packages that way I have to jump through a great many postal hoops like being fingerprinted and submitting some skin from the back of my neck.  (The last time I mailed something to Canada there was a strip search involved…though I can’t swear that had anything to do with the parcel’s destination.)

Secondly, all I ask is that you’ve won something off the blog within the past thirty days that you wait and let some other people have a chance to benefit from this sweet, sweet largesse.  This rule can’t really be applied for this particular giveaway because it’s been about four months since I handed out free swag…so if you’re of U.S. origin, take a chance!  Remember: Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

We’re back, baby!

Here I stand (hat in hand) begging the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear faithful for forgiveness because I’ve been away from the blog for so long.  I mentioned that content for the blog in January would be a bit skimpy due to the hustle-and-bustle expected after mi madre’s back operation…but surely, I said to myself, things would pick up again in February.  Alas, this was not to be.

Sister Kat posted this picture to Facebook, commenting "Mom prepares to go to the gym. I never thought I'd be typing 'Mom' and 'gym' in the same sentence."

First, the particulars: Mom’s operation(s) went without a hitch—the only real storm cloud on the horizon was that a week after the work was done, she was transferred to a facility to undergo rehab of a physical and occupational therapy nature…and she did not like that one little bit.  No sir.  She did not like it.  She started to see her facility time as some sort of punishment, which was certainly not our intention—we just wanted her to get on the mend as quickly as possible, and not endanger all the nice work done by the surgeons.  This is purely speculation on my part, but I think she might have stared into the abyss and thought This is what it’s going to be like when those rotten children of mine put me in a home.  It got so bad that she began wheedling for an early release date, and though I promised Dad I would hold firm I pretty much caved after one of the night nurses told me of an incident in which she had to calm Mom down after a panic attack.  I just couldn’t sign on to keeping her there any further even if it was best for her in the long run.

So with the return of Mom to our modest digs at Rancho Yesteryear, we had to make a few changes; one was to rent a hospital bed from an outfit here in town…and that lasted all of three or four days before Mom said “f**k this noise” and elected to sleep in the guest room.  With each day, she gets adventurous to do little tasks like fold laundry and make preparations for lunch and/or dinner; I do most of the heavy lifting like get the clothes into and out of the washer and dryer, and serve up the grub for meals when it’s ready.  Unfortunately, I’m still on Grocery Duty (gad, do I hate shopping) but I’m getting more acclimated to it.  The last time I was in Publix, one of the cashiers who knows Mom pretty well started pumping me for information…and it took all of my self-discipline not to fall to the floor in helpless laughter when she said, “You know, I’ve known your mom for quite a while…and she strikes me as a stubborn person.”  (Had this been someone I knew better, my response would have started with “no” and ended with “Sherlock.”)

As you might have inferred from some of the photos accompanying this essay, the Double K’s (sister Kat and sister-in-law Katie) visited for a couple of days and brought my favorite nephew with them—which was a wonderful gift for Mom, since she doesn’t get to see him as often as she should.  Because I am a part-time idiot in real life, I made the mistake of telling Davis that while I had seen the first Toy Story movie I had not seen Toy Story 2 or 3—so he preceded to give me an exhaustive rundown of the content in each film.  At every lull in the conversation. During the visit, the landline phone started ringing in my back bedroom and the only way I would be able to answer it was to run and get it before the fifth ring…so when I took off down the hall I heard Davis cry out “I’ve never seen Uncle Ivan run before!”  (I was not angry about this, because it is true—I rarely run unless I’m chased.  Mom and Dad, on the other hand, were dissolved in hysterics…with Mom commenting that she nearly wet her pants.)

So, with things settling back down to some semblance of normalcy, I’m going to try and get some reviews up on the blog soon.  I’ve been very naughty and purchased more movies (many of which you probably won’t be seeing on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ any time in the near future) in addition to receiving one or two gratis screeners outside of my ClassicFlix work.  (My recent contributions to CF, reviews of The Captive City and Everybody Does It, are up for your perusal if you’re interested.)  I’ll also have some nice Radio Spirits swag to give away—the first of several giveaways will begin on Thursday.  Tomorrow, I’ll resume with Overlooked Films on Thursday with an entry that aired on Tee Cee Em recently…so once again, mea culpa for making you wait so long.

The State of the Blog

This is officially going to be the final post for 2015, which is why I’ve given it that impressive-sounding title.  I had planned to put a few more posts up in December per my usual promises…but that annoying little hindrance I call “real life” kind of thwarted me at every turn.  For starters, sister Kat stopped by in mid-December to help celebrate Los Parentes Yesteryear’s fifty-third anniversary (oh, sure—she sounds like a dutiful daughter…but all she really wanted was some cake from Publix) and then about a week later, sister Debbie was the guest of honor along with her husband Craige and my niece Rachel for a Christmas visit.  (We were quite insistent that no gifts be exchanged this year to thank both of them for the tremendous help they provided during the relocation to the present Rancho Yesteryear…but Debbie violated that little compact with $50 in Amazon gift cards for yours truly.  As you’ve probably predicted, they were quickly redeemed towards the purchase of Seasons 1 and 2 of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.)

Right now, we are readying for Operation: Operation in January (okay, sorry I couldn’t come up with something cleverer) when Mom goes under the knife to relieve her back problems and in the meantime, I am in a race to record every episode of Wanted: Dead or Alive to DVD, thanks to the generosity of the DISH Network people, who are currently offering a “freeview” of the Starz and Encore channels from December 26 through January 2.  I downloaded each episode from Encore Westerns On Demand (we would love to welcome this fine station into our home, but we are too cheap to pay extra for it) and since they’ll only stay on my system for less than thirty days I have a lot of work ahead of me.  I have found that if I stick an episode of Wanted on the beginning of each disc I record I can follow it up with a ninety-minute-or-so movie and not feel as if I’m wasting any disk space.  (Yes, I am aware than “anal-retentive” has a hyphen.)  I sacrificed my ownership of the popular TV western starring Steve McQueen in the last eBay DVD Purge back in July of 2014, so when I saw an opportunity to get these shows for no money down I pounced like my nephew on discounted Star Wars merchandise.

Earlier in June of this year, I tried to get a new feature started here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear entitled “GetTV Theatre”—inspired by a promotional e-mail I received from GetTV’s own Cindy Ronzoni that provided me with links to upcoming classic films due to air on the digital subchannel.  I got as far as Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) before I had to abandon the project (the move to Winterville interrupted my viewing, and then Mom’s situation kept me from previewing any more flicks)—but with Dish Network’s new acquisition of GetTV to their lineup (channel 373) there might be a possibility that paddles will be applied to the feature.  I was pretty stoked when I found GetTV on our system (I occasionally do a search to see if there’s anything I might be missing) and despite Dish’s perplexing reluctance to add similar stations like MeTV, Decades, Grit, Antenna TV, Cozi TV, Buzzr, etc. I’m hoping they’ll eventually come around.  (I kicked around the idea of investing in some OTA [off-the-air] equipment to make up for this entertainment deficit…but when I saw a promo on WSB-TV with Vicki Lawrence plugging MeTV’s acquisition of Mama’s Family I changed my mind.  (I’m starting to see the warning signs that MeTV is going the way that TVLand did when they started purging shows like Petticoat Junction and The Phil Silvers Show from the schedule.)

GetTV runs a number of classic boob tube oaters on Saturdays (The Tall Man, Laredo) so I’m looking forward to seeing those—plus they offer up the occasional variety hour (they’ve been running The Judy Garland Show for some time now), and a glance at January has revealed that they’ll soon be featuring The Jim Nabors Hour.  I’m not particularly wild about the commercial breaks on GetTV, but if they show a movie that’s been MIA on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ in a while, I’m willing to put up with a little advertising.

I also want to thank all the good folks who sent a Christmas card my way: my longtime pal and ex-wife Margo (“I vass Madam’s fifth hussband!”), Rodney, Martin, Peggy and B.J., Laura, Brandie and Doc Quatermass; Doc was most generous in sending me a little gift of the McFarland Gunsmoke reference book (hardcover, even!) that I have been sampling every free moment I get (when I’m not wrestling it away from me fadduh).  (Doc probably knows that my other copy continues to cool its heels in my father’s own private Gitmo, a.k.a. “the storage shed.”)  I apologize for the tardiness in getting out my cards this year, by the way—it’s kind of a long story, but certain financial forces kept me from purchasing them in a timely manner.

I’m a little hesitant to make any New Year’s resolutions this year: more often than not, they involve me promising to put more content on the blog in the future, and I’ve broken that vow so many times in the past I’ve lost count.  Things might be a little quiet here in January until I get a better handle on the Mom Operation situation, but be sure to keep an eye on the Radio Spirits blog and ClassicFlix for my contributions should you start missing me.  Thanks to everybody for continuing to encourage my behavior, and I wish every member of the TDOY faithful a wondrous 2016.

“Sometimes angels rush in where fools fear to tread…”

Prior to 1993, anytime you wanted to watch the holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) on the small screen all you had to do was surf to any random cable channel.  Because IAWL was on a metric ton of stations, apparently due to its quasi-public domain status (someone forgot to cross an “i” and dot a “t” when the copyright came up for renewal in 1974).  When National Telefilm Associates (who acquired IAWL around 1955 from Paramount) changed its name to Republic Pictures in 1986, one of their first areas of exploration involved restoring the copyright to the film, based on the fact that they owned the rights to the source material (the short story “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Stern).  Say what you want about Republic (there’s an irony in that they’ve since come back to the Paramount fold), but they recognized a cash cow when they saw one.  It’s a Wonderful Life has now become a Christmas Eve tradition on NBC (I believe the network airs it twice in December; I also saw it unspool on the USA Network one night during Sister Kat’s visit), but for those of us who’d rather not sit through the commercials it’s readily available on VHS, Blu-ray, etc.

I watch It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas.  I’m still watching, as a matter of fact, the original Artisan Home Entertainment disc I purchased in 2000—I know there have been newer versions released since that one, but I’ve never felt the need to upgrade.  I’m also an unabashed fan of the movie, and I predictably bawl like a baby all the way through its 129-minute running time.  I know a lot of people don’t care for it (I blame the endless PD showings for this in a way) and that the truly cynical take delight in giving it a good ribbing (Gary Kamiya did a nice job for a Salon piece in 2001, and my godfather Scott C. lacerated it at World O’Crap in 2006 with a Better Living Through Bad Movies-like treatment).  My love for IAWL is such that I can read pieces like Gary or Scott’s, laugh myself silly, and still stubbornly cling to my adoration for the feature film that its director, Frank Capra, declared his favorite among the many movies on which he held the reins (he also made watching IAWL with his family a Yuletide tradition).

I’ll never be considered a particularly religious or spiritual individual…but the message of IAWL has always been a powerful one for me.  The concept of one man functioning as “the glue” in his community is pretty hard to resist because—well, let’s be honest: there’s something in the human condition that compels us to want to make our mark on the world and do great things…and if we fall short of this goal, we entertain thoughts that it’s all been for naught and we’ve failed.  It’s a Wonderful Life proves John Donne knew what he was talking about when he wrote “No man is an island”; every task we perform, no matter how small or insignificant, impacts another person’s life in the most amazing way.  “Strange, isn't it?” marvels Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers), the “angel” sent to Earth to keep frustrated businessman George Bailey (James Stewart) from throwing away “the greatest gift.”  “Each man's life touches so many other lives.  When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?”

Believe me, I know what you’re thinking.  George Bailey was a chump—even a rent collector (Charles Lane) for his nemesis Henry F. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) observes this to be so—a man who missed out on so many opportunities to spend his entire life being altruistic to the inhabitants of a small town.  I think that’s what I love so much about IAWL; George is the only bulwark against the tyranny represented by Potter, and despite the fantasy elements of the film the Potter situation is presented fairly realistically in that he’s responsible for the Bailey Building and Loan’s financial trouble (by keeping the money that Thomas Mitchell’s Uncle Billy so foolishly misplaced) and like so many outcomes in the annals of white collar crime, he appears to get away with it.  (Yes, I am aware of the Saturday Night Live skit where the citizens of Bedford Falls kick the stuffing out of Potter in the “lost footage” of IAWL.  I laughed at that, too.)  Lionel Barrymore wasn’t able to play Ebenezer Scrooge in the MGM version of A Christmas Carol (1938) due to his precarious health (he had made the part his own in several radio productions dramatizing Dickens’ classic) so his Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life gives him an opportunity to fulfill that acting dream (and Potter is worse than Scrooge—at least Ebenezer got redemption at the end).  The casting of the parts in IAWL is another of the movie’s assets; in addition to stars Stewart and Donna Reed you have a gathering of such first-rate character thesps as Barrymore, Mitchell, Travers, H.B. Warner, Beulah Bondi, Ward Bond and Frank Faylen (the original Bert and Ernie!) and so many more.  (The old-time radio devotee in me loves seeing Lillian “Birdie” Randolph as Annie, and of course Sheldon Leonard as Nick the bartender—“Get me!  I’m givin’ out wings!”)

There are two moments in IAWL that are guaranteed to start the waterworks in me.  The first occurs during the honeymoon night of George and Mary Bailey, in which the couple take residence in an old dilapidated house because the money earmarked for their vacation has been doled out to Building and Loan customers to keep the joint running when there’s a run on the bank.  Earlier in their courtship, the couple threw rocks at the abandoned house (George explains that if you throw a rock and break glass, any wish you make will be granted) and when Mary lobs a stone and achieves the desired result, she’s coy about what she wished to George.  Honeymoon Night, as the couple go in for a clinch, Mary tells her husband: “Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house?  This is what I wished for…”  (I am not crying—I just have something in my eye, damn it!)

The other tearful moment in the movie takes place during George’s nightmarish vision of what life would have been like had he never been born.  Maybe it’s because I’ve always been close to my parents and family, but the sequence in which an uncomprehending George attempts to seek shelter in his mother’s boarding house and Ma Bailey (Bondi) stares back at him with those cold, cruel, uncaring eyes literally tears me up.  It’s much more effective to me than George’s later discovery that Mary has become an unattractive spinster (hey, she’s a librarian—at least she’s working steady); we’d like to think that no matter how much trouble we get ourselves into, our family will be there in our corner to help us weather out the storm.  Actress Bondi is so wonderful as Ma Bailey; she’d play Jimmy Stewart’s mom in three other films, including the Frank Capra-directed Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).

This Christmas, in addition to IAWL, Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 original, of course), and A Christmas Carol (1951—a recent addition to the TDOY Christmas tradition, since I only received a DVD of it a few years ago), I sat down with The Bishop’s Wife (1947)—a movie I hadn’t watched in a number of years and was curious to see how well it held up.  It’s still an entertaining movie, but what struck me was how it would make a great (if a bit long) double feature with It’s a Wonderful Life.  The two movies share similar premises (as well as appearances from IAWL’s Karolyn “Zuzu” Grimes and Bobby Anderson, who played George Bailey as a yute): an angel is sent down to help out a mere mortal, only in the case of Wife it’s Cary Grant as the messenger who helps the ecclesiastical David Niven when Niven has difficulty drumming up funds for a big honkin’ cathedral.  As it turns out, it’s not the cathedral that’s the problem (that gets shunted off to the side before the closing credits roll in favor of wealthy dowager Gladys Cooper’s decision to donate generously to the poor and needy): the relationship in Niven’s marriage to Loretta Young has become quite strained, and Cary (as Dudley the Cherub) is only too happy to lend a hand.

The Grant-Young-Niven “triangle” in The Bishop’s Wife is probably the reason why I still enjoy seeing the movie despite some of its elements not holding up well; there’s something slightly subversive about an angel who looks like Cary Grant beating your time—most of us probably would have given up at that point.  (“You win, Lord…I’m going to look into this celibacy priest thing.”)  If the angel in Wife had been played by IAWL’s Henry Travers…we would have dismissed Wife in a heartbeat.  There are so many great character veterans in Bishop’s Wife, which is another reason why it’s such fun: Elsa Lanchester, Sara “Aunt Milly” Haden, James Gleason, and the indestructible Regis Toomey.  For me, Monty Woolley is the real reason you should watch Wife; they don’t come right out and say it but his Professor Wutheridge is an atheist (which makes sense, given his line of work) and his interactions with the out-of-this-world Dudley are among the movie’s highlights.  I particularly enjoy the scene where Cary and Loretta pay Monty a visit and he offers them the last bit of some sherry on hand; whenever Woolley isn’t looking, Grant uses his heavenly talents to refill his glass at every turn.  Finally, Monty looks at both the glass and the bottle and says matter-of-factly: “We don’t seem to be making much headway.”  (Never fails to break me up.)

“My goodness…’just because’ ain’t no reason…”

Margaret Sidney—the nom de plume of author Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop—wrote nearly thirty books between 1881 and 1916, and among her most popular works was a series of children’s stories that centered around a fictional family known as the Peppers.  Five Little Peppers and How They Grew introduced us to this clan; a poor but proud household whose fortunes are turned around when the youngest child, Phronsie (yes, that is the kid’s name—ayyyyyyyy—it’s short for “Sophronia”), is kidnapped by an organ grinder but rescued by young J.H. “Jasper” King, Jr., the son of wealthy bidnessman J. Horatio King, Sr.  The Kings get to know the Family Pepper and eventually become their benefactors when the family is invited to move in with them…because this sort of scenario happens all the time in real life.

The popularity of the Pepper books (there were a slew of sequels and follow-ups in the wake of How They Grew) attracted the attention of Columbia Pictures, who instituted a short film series in 1939 beginning with the appropriately titled Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.  The movie takes quite a few liberties with the source novel (anyone praying that Fonzie Phronsie really is kidnapped by an organ grinder is going to disappointed) and the movies that followed How They Grew also drew on plots concocted by studio scribes rather than anything Sidney dreamed up.

In the first movie, we meet little Potsie Phronsie (Dorothy Ann Seese) along with her siblings: the bland eldest son, Ben (Charles Peck); whiny Joey (Tommy Bond); equally whiny Davie (Jimmy Leake in the first one—Bobby Larson in the remaining three); and Edith Fellows as the eldest daughter, Polly.  The films were fashioned with Fellows in mind (Edith was a popular child star at the time…sort of Columbia’s Deanna Durbin) but it wasn’t too long before Seese started to threaten Fellows in the opening credits department (she’s second-billed beginning with the sophomore outing, 1940’s Five Little Peppers at Home) because she functioned as Columbia’s imitation Shirley Temple.

The Peppers are headed up by a family matriarch played by Dorothy Peterson (if she has a first name I didn’t catch it; she’s referred to only as “Mrs. Pepper” in the credits which gives you an idea of how integral she is to the series) whose husband died in a copper mine cave-in some time earlier.  He left a half-interest in the mine to daughter Polly; the other half is owned by the wealthy J.H. King (Clarence Kolb), whose grandson Jasper (Ronald Sinclair) befriends the children when Polly and Joey turn up at the King residence one day looking for a client who’s supposed to pay Polly for a dress she’s mended.  The money will be used to buy the fixin’s for a birthday cake for Mrs. P, and when the two children learn that the lady with the dress money is no longer at the King’s but somewhere else sixty miles away, Joey has this reaction:

I cannot even begin to explain how mortified I was to see this.  This is Tommy Freakin’ Bond crying his eyes out, ferchrissake—“Butch” from the Our Gang comedies.  If Butch ever needed $1.25 for cake ingredients, he’d just have “Woim” beat up a kid for his lunch money and problem solved.  I like Bond—not only for his work in Our Gang but in the shorts he appeared in with such funsters as Andy Clyde and Charley Chase—but his constant belly-aching in the Pepper series will get on your nerves after a fashion.  (Oh, here’s a neat drinking game you can play while watching these films: down a shot every time Tommy says “Gee whillikers…”  You’ll be Lillian Roth by the time the movie is over, I promise you.)

But I digress.  Jasper tells his granddad about his new friends, and the wily old bastid puts two and two together to conclude that this is the family he needs to schmooze to get the other half of the mine.  He showers them with presents—springs for a new stove to replace their old one—and for his efforts, winds up trapped with the rugrats when the house is quarantined for measles.

Ha!  You have to share a bed with the kids!  That’ll learn ya, you miserable capitalist swine!  King spends so much time with the Pepper brood that his crustiness begins to dissipate and he develops a genuine fondness for the kids.  (There’s a laugh-out-loud scene earlier in the movie where he’s invited to bake bread with the family and he’s a bit crestfallen to learn that the bill of fare consists solely of beans…which his doctor has told him he cannot have.  Davie: “Oh, that’s all right, Mr. King—we won’t tell your doctor.”)  Though his intention was to screw over the family and snap up the mine at a rock-bottom price, he’s changed his tune (no doubt influenced by an episode where Polly is afflicted with temporary blindness) despite some initial concern from Polly, who overhears King discussing the mine deal with a man named Townsend (Paul Everton), a competitor.  King offers to give Polly more than what Townsend is offering but she tells him all she wants is to be partners.  King agrees.

With Five Little Peppers at Home, the child actors are introduced during the opening credits by having them emerge from gi-normous pepper shakers.  Awwwww...

Five Little Peppers at Home seamlessly picks up where the previous film left off—but there’s a darker tone to the sequel, as the copper mine owned by King and Polly doesn’t appear to be the financial windfall they had counted on…on account of no one can locate any copper.  King has sunk so much money into this boondoggle that the bank has no choice but to foreclose on his own home…and so Home sees the wealthy bidnessman moving back in with his adopted family into their old residence at “Gusty Corners” when the stress of going belly-up bankrupt causes him to fall ill.  (In the books, Mrs. Pepper is made King’s housekeeper—and I chuckled at how this was excised from the movie series, ostensibly because it’s kind of bad form when you have to move back into your maid’s domicile.)  This relocation has some disturbing overtones; in How They Grew, King has a manservant who answers to “Martin” who’s played by Leonard Carey but essayed by Rex Evans for the remainder of the franchise.  Martin asks King if he can accompany his employer to his new digs even though King can’t afford to pay him.  (Again, because things like happen in real life all the time.)

Does this little prat get on your wick after a while?  Correctamundo!

Martin explains to J.H. that he, too, has grown fond of the children—apparently to the point where it’s eventually decided that he’ll sleep with Joey and Davie once they’ve moved back to Gusty Corners.  Now…I could probably understand this situation if it were a temporary one (or even if they were all related)…but this guy is still sleeping with the kids by the fourth movie, Five Little Peppers in Trouble (1940)—and the only reason why he’s not sharing a bed in Out West with the Peppers (1940; the third entry) is because the Pepper clan is on a trip in the wilds of Oregon.  (Regarding Trouble, I’d be a little worried about the trouble Martin’s going to be in when the authorities get wind of the G.C. sleeping arrangements.)  The narrative in Home goes further south when it’s revealed that before Martin became a “gentleman’s gentleman” (and dues-paying member of NAMBLA), he was an amateur geologist.  He becomes convinced that there is a vein of copper in that mine, and he takes the six kids on a “picnic” to try and locate what all the engineers and experts King has been paying for months cannot.

Disturbing, Just...disturbing.

The picnic goes sour when Martin and five of the kids are trapped in a cave-in at the mine (Ben is the lucky one…and of course, that doofus has to go back for help—honestly, I can’t catch a break in any of these movies) but on the bright side, he does inadvertently discover the vein of copper, and everything comes out in the wash.  “Grandpa” King even vows he’s going to lay waste to the current Pepper domicile and have a new house built, big enough to accommodate everyone.  (Hopefully this will eliminate the Martin-Joey-Davie sleepovers.)  Though by Pepper Misadventure #3…

The Burger King is further up the street...and the Weenie King lives in that apartment vacated by Gerry and Tom Jeffers before they went to Palm Beach.

…the farthest he’s got is a new mailbox.  Actually, Out West with the Peppers begins with the family on their way back from a trip to Paris.  Nothing unusual about this, of course…but you’ll soon see why things are a little askew when I discuss the final chapter of the movie Peppers.  The return home is necessitated because Mrs. Pepper has taken ill during the voyage and once examined by a doctor, it’s determined she needs a change in climate.  So Polly writes a letter to Aunt Alice (Helen Brown) in Oregon, asking if the family might stay with her and her husband Jim (Victor Kilian) so that Mrs. P can quickly be on the mend.  The Peppers’ visit will be complicated by the fact that Jim is a real douchenozzle; he indulges in strong drink from time to time, and at one point in Out West he even smacks Alice around.

There are a number of noticeable changes in the series with Out West with the Peppers.  First off, Clarence Kolb is out and Pierre Watkin (he of the “hearty handclasps” in W.C. Fields’ The Bank Dick) is in as Mr. King.  Second—and I don’t know if this is some sort of Our Gang influence or what—but the Pepper children have really upped their bratitude in this one: it’s almost like they were raised by wolves.  (Unfortunately, they were not eaten by same.)  First, Davie and Joey decide to walk on top of the ship rails as they head back to the good ol’ U.S.A…

Gosh, kids...don't fall.  That would break my heart.

…then, while waiting for the train at the station, little Moxie Phronsie lets a bunch of chickens loose that just happen to be caged for the purpose of allowing her to let them loose.  (The family even climbs aboard the Oregon Express before all the pullets have been rounded up, letting some other schmuck deal with the problem…)

…Ben draws the unlucky straw in the “Who-will-sleep-with-Joey-and-Davie?” sweepstakes, and an unruly pillow fight erupts…

…and the pizza de resistance, Davie and Joey create a molasses mess at the local general store. 

Now…if the storekeeper (Walter Soderling) was one of those disagreeably dyspeptic types that so commonly populated films of that era, I’d get a chuckle out of the molasses spill because nothing generates more mirth than an authority figure getting his comeuppance.  But he doesn’t do anything to provoke the kids’ shenanigans, and there’s no explanation for why the Pepper children suddenly decided to get in touch with their hellion side.  Same goes for “Uncle Jim”—I’m not excusing his drinking or wife beating, but I can certainly sympathize with his surly attitude around the kids, considering they’re about as well-behaved as the freshman class at St. Trinian’s.  (They let a skunk loose in his bedroom at one point, if that helps any.)

The climax of Out West involves another idyllic picnic scene that is quickly greeted by storm clouds when the kids are trapped on a makeshift raft built for them by gregarious Swede Olé (Emory Parnell—whom I did not recognize the first time I watched this) and are headed for a treacherous log plume.  I’ll save you the trouble: they’re rescued, and their surprising champion is Jim, who is helpless to watch his heart melt in the presence of little Maisie Phronsie and her demonic siblings.

The final feature in the Peppers series was Five Little Peppers in Trouble, and the plot of this movie in inspired by a subplot in the second film, where Jasper’s Aunt Martha (Laura Treadwell) makes noises about removing her nephew from the “squalor” that is Gusty Corners.  Martha is up to her tricks again (though she’s played in Trouble by Kathleen Howard, another Fieldsian regular), threatening to get custody of Jasp through a court order because the senior and junior King are still living in the Pepper house (the new place is still under construction).  J.H. (Watkin again) has a diabolical scheme: he’ll enroll Jasper in a private school where Martha can’t find him.  For reasons unexplained, the Pepper children have to go, too…though I know the real reason why they have to go—otherwise, we’d have no movie.

Trouble is basically the old “poor-kids-mistreated-by-rich-snobs” plot trotted out for sixty-three minutes; the Pepper kids are as welcome at the exclusive Landsdowne Private School as smallpox, and despite overtures from one or two decent kids (Antonia Oland plays a student who befriends Fellows’ Polly) the children have a perfectly miserable time while they’re there.  The “danger” climax, interestingly enough, does not put the Peppers in peril; a trio of revolting female students drain the swimming pool shortly before the other girls sneak out for a midnight dip and two of the students wind up injured, with Polly framed for the deed.  Told that she and her siblings will have to leave, Polly gives a passionate speech about how awful it was for them so they’re glad to go and stick it up your ass while you’re at it.  (The actress who plays sympathetic teacher Miss Roland is the same one who played the kids’ Aunt Alice in the previous picture, which allowed me to yell “Nepotism!” at the screen.)

The kid on the left is Freddie Mercer, a talented boy singer remembered here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear as the film version of "Leeeeeroy" in The Great Gildersleeve movies...

...and the girl at the piano is Our Gang alumnus Shirley Jean Rickert,  When you know that Rickert became a striptease dancer in her adult years, her character's name of "Kiki" is pretty risible here.

Trouble wraps up with “Grandpa” King announcing that at the hearing to decide whether or not Jasper can continue living with him and the Pepper Family, the judge suggested he take his grandson to Paris…which is how Out West begins, with the family’s return.  I found this kind of curious, only because it would have made more sense to release Trouble before Out West for continuity’s sake (Jasper and Grandpa are only in the first eleven minutes of Out West anyway).  (I thought it might have been possible that Trouble was filmed before Out West and just mistakenly released afterward…but the info at afi.com doesn’t bear that out—particularly since the original title of Out West was Five Little Peppers Abroad.)

I know that my intense distaste for child actors will jaundice my appreciation for the “Five Little Peppers” series…so let me tick off the bright spots.  I like Edith Fellows, one of those kiddie thesps who managed not to be too cloying and she also sings well (she warbles Brahms’ Lullaby to little Swayze Phronsie in the first Peppers movie, and does a nice rendition of The Blue Danube Waltz in Trouble)…and I think the subtly suggested romance between her and Ronald Sinclair’s Jasper is kind of sweet.  (Sinclair was kind of the poor man’s Freddie Bartholomew…he later had a nice turn in one of my favorite Errol Flynn films, Desperate Journey [1942].)  Since the Pepper films were Columbia efforts, you get to see some of their players in small roles: Bruce Bennett (as a chauffeur in the first two films), Dorothy Comingore, Jack Rice, Ann Doran, Ernie Adams, Eddie Laughton, and Don Beddoe (plus the ubiquitous Bess Flowers), to name a few.  Director Charles Barton, who would later go on to oversee many of Abbott & Costello’s best pictures, held the reins on all four Pepper vehicles and demonstrated competency throughout despite the nausea and clear risk of diabetes.  If the movies make the rounds on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ again, those of you who are suckers for family-oriented films will certainly enjoy them.