DVR Diary: KENTUCKY KERNELS (1934)

Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby were among the most important creative talents in Pre-Code comedy. They were screenwriters and songwriters for many of the era's top comics, most notably for the Marx Bros. (Animal Crackers, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup) but also for Eddie Cantor, Joe E. Brown, Amos 'n Andy and, at the end of the Pre-Code era, Wheeler and Woolsey. Earlier, Wheeler and Woolsey's first starring vehicle, The Cuckoos, was adapted from a Kalmar and Ruby show. Hips, Hips, Hooray! and Kentucky Kernels were original screenplays by the pair, who contributed one song to the latter, one of George Stevens's first feature films as a director. There's no doubting that the writers, not the director, are the auteurs of this piece. The most Stevens-like moments come right at the start, as a jilted lover contemplates suicide, giving his possessions to passers-by one by one. Before this poor man carries out his plan, we cut to the stars, living in a waterfront shack in a parody of marriage, Wheeler complaining about the humiliation he suffers having to wash dishes every night while Woolsey, playing a magician between engagements, snarls at him. We stick around long enough to learn that they've cast fish nets all along the waterfront, catching junk rather than fish, and then we cut back to the despondent man jumping into the water. Apparently it's the first time our heroes have caught a living thing, but what good does it do them?

The boys get the idea into their heads that the man needs someone to care for and set out to adopt a child for him. At the orphanage, Margaret Dumont seems glad to be rid of Spanky (McFarland,natch), an infant psychopath with a compulsion to break glass. Soon to be the leader of Our Gang, Spanky is almost the antithesis of Shirley Temple; nearly as cute, yes, but a creature of pure mischief. Apparently Kalmar and Ruby thought the preceding the best way to get him on the screen with Wheeler and Woolsey, and at this point the despondent man disappears from the narrative, having reconciled and eloped with his girl. That's okay, though, since it means W&W will have to chaperone the tyke down south when it's revealed that he's the heir to a backwoods fortune. Unfortunately and inevitably, Spanky has inherited a household embroiled in one of the region's characteristic feuds. He's also inherited Willie Best (here billed only as "Sleep 'n Eat") as the family retainer, making this quite the household. Best is always a problematic presence, with his work alongside Bob Hope in "The Cat and the Canary" and "The Ghost Breakers" probably his most acceptable performances. Here, he's largely a poor man's Stepin Fetchit.

Inevitably and unfortunately, Wheeler -- the younger, more effeminate member of the pair -- falls for a girl from the enemy family (played by the late Mary Carlisle, who departed this earth last summer at age 104). This sparks a reconciliation of the families, helped along by the big song of the picture, presented in what had become the cartoonish RKO musical comedy style. Wheeler and Carlisle get the first verses, and then we cut to the patriarch and matriarch of the rival broods, allowing Noah Beery to show off the singing voice that got him cast in the infamous Golden Dawn of a few years before. Then we cut to a random collection of blacks for a more swinging rendition of the tune. Then Spanky sings it to a dog, and then Woolsey sings it to a mule. It's very much like the changes run on "Everyone Says I Love You" in Horse Feathers, only done all at once, and then, except for a little bit of recitative at the banquet table, the musical portion of the picture is over.

The feud resumes when Spanky pops a champagne cork and all the erstwhile feudists mistake that for gunfire. They recommence to shooting, all apparently missing each other at point blank range. All efforts at reconciliation fail, until our heroes, Spanky and Sleep 'n Eat are besieged at the ancestral manse. There's no way Kalmar and Ruby can top the siege sequence in Duck Soup, though there's an absurdly inventive bit of business involving a meat grinder, a blow torch, a string of light bulbs and some raspberries enabling the besieged heroes to fake a machine-gun attack on the besiegers. There are also painful bits when Spanky appears to invite gunfire by mounting hats on fragile objects on top of a crate inside of which Best cowers to no particularly comic effect. All ends peacefully, however, when the good guys produce a telegram showing that Spanky had been identified as heir to the estate by mistake, making it unnecessary to murder him or any of his household. It's the final bit of randomness in this most arbitrary of stories, but after all, it's the journey, not the reason, that matters.

This is Wheeler & Woolsey's first Code Enforcement picture and thus quite unsalacious if no less nutty than previous vehicles, presumably including the Kalmar-Ruby script for Hips, Hips, Hooray! Despite what I said about Stevens's contribution, there are a couple of nice gags with protracted payoffs that show the lessons he learned from Hal Roach. Early, Spanky sat on the accelerator of W&W's car, causing them to get in trouble with a traffic cop. Woolsey decides to impress the cop with his magic, appearing to tear the ticket to shreds, only to produce it intact before the flatfoot can get mad. The cop is impressed and asks how the trick is done, so Woolsey gives him instructions, and of course the gendarme irreversibly rips the ticket apart. He's a good sport, though and sends the boys on their way. Back home, they get the news about the man's elopement, along with a $1,000 check to cover taking care of Spanky for another month. Also impressed by the earlier magic, Spanky snatches the check and tears it to shreds. Down south, Spanky's new estate sports a prominent greenhouse, and the tot has to be steered constantly away from temptation until, at the very end of the film, as Woolsey, Wheeler and his girl are driving off, Woolsey and Spanky exchange glances in the front seat. Echoing the child's characteristic "Okey-doke!" Woolsey cathartically plows the car through the greenhouse. It's a characteristic closing gesture for a style of comedy itself on the way out at the end of 1934.