The Jones Family in Hollywood

In the late 1930s and very early 1940s, Twentieth Century-Fox made 17 Jones Family films. The series was much like a lower-budgeted Hardy Family movie (MGM), which were very popular at the time. Despite there being so many Jones films, I cannot recall any of them ever being played on TV. I found one of their later movies, "The Jones Family in Hollywood" on YouTube and it's the first of the films I've seen.

Apart from Spring Byington as the mother and William Tracy as a guest star, the folks in this movie were mostly small-time actors...folks you probably won't recognize. This isn't a complaint but more an observation about the money Fox put (or didn't put) into these films. In contrast, the Hardy films featured quite a few familiar faces.

The story begins with Father learning that he's going to be a guest speaker at a VA convention in Hollywood. The family decides they are going and don't give Dad much chance to say yes or no! Once there, the Jones kids (minus the youngest who they left back in Ohio) quickly integrate themselves into Hollywood life.

While I wouldn't say this film was as polished as its MGM competition, it was very entertaining. Simple mindless family entertainment....and I mean that in a very positive way. It makes me want to see more Jones films....if I can find them.

By the way, it doesn't matter but there is no place called Maryville, Ohio. There is a Marysville, Ohio....but no Maryville.

The Jones family were supposed to be 20th Century-Fox's low-budget response to MGM's popular Andy Hardy films, but the aspirations of the series never got any higher than the semi-pleasant "The Jones Family in Hollywood". This film is most interesting because the original story was co-written by Buster Keaton, and Buster makes a very brief uncredited appearance on screen, with no lines. Watch for the scene in which a whole squadron of hotel porters invade the Jones family's hotel suite. The porter in the front has all the dialogue. The porter standing directly behind him, with his hat pulled down over his eyes, is Buster Keaton.

Every year, Dad Jones (Jed Prouty) goes off to his American Legion convention, and every year the rest of the family refuse to accompany him to his boring convention. But this year the convention is in Hollywood, so the whole family come along. Poor old Dad spends the whole convention weekend marching in parades, carrying a heavy tuba and tooting his lungs out. Meanwhile, the rest of the family are looking for movie stars.

The film places fairly equal emphasis on each member of the Jones family, although some of the subplots are more successful than others. Most interesting is what happens to Junior Jones. The boy strikes up a friendship with a Hollywood cameraman who brings Junior into the studio and shows him the workings of a cinema camera, encouraging him to become a photographer. Of all the sequences in this film, I suspect that this scene was the dearest to Buster Keaton's heart.

"The Jones Family in Hollywood" was directed by Malcolm St Clair, a prolific comedy director who is generally regarded as a no-talent hack, and his credits bear this out. (He directed Laurel and Hardy in some of their worst, least funny films near the end of their career.) There are some good moments in "The Jones Family in Hollywood", but it's obvious why this series never took off. I'll rate this film 3 out of 10, mostly for the cameraman's scenes.

The 'reviewer' above states that The Jones Family in Hollywood was the only 'entry' in the Jones Family saga. Not so-not even close. According to the IMDb, there were 17 Jones Family films, and all were made in the span of 3 or 4 years, which is astounding! Jed Prouty always played the Dad, and though I haven't seen more than a couple of these fun but silly films, I believe that most of the films starred the same cast. Wish more were available on the rental market!

I recently met Sid Kibrick, who not only played the youngest son in the Jones sagas, he was WOIM, Butch's sidekick in fourteen episodes of the Our Gang shorts.

But then, I am terrible at spotting familiar faces among the bit players.

When Jed Prouty gets appointed to be the local lodge's representative at a convention in Hollywood, the whole family goes along. There Kenneth Howell falls in love with an actress who's using him to figure out how to play a hick, and June Carlson falls for arrogant star William Tracy, who tries to seduce her with the promise of a screen test.

It's one of the many episodes of THE JONES FAMILY series, 20th Century-Fox's response to MGM's Hardy Family. There are no situations here that haven't been seen many times, but it's performed by the large and professional cast and crew that Fox's B unit could command. It's of interest to fans of silent comedy, not only for the hope of spotting Heinie Conklin among the Legionnaires, but because Buster Keaton has a writing credit here. I believe I spotted three gag sequences he had a hand in. It's not great film making by any means, but it certainly attains its modest goal of filling out an hour entertainingly.