Alfalfa's Aunt

Alfalfa's Aunt (1939)

*** (out of 4)

The seventh film in the MGM-Our Gang series turns out to be the best one so far. Alfalfa's aunt (Marie Blake) comes over for her yearly visit, which doesn't sit too well with the kid's father but there's nothing they can do. It turns out that the aunt is writing a murder-mystery but using the family member's real names. When Alfalfa reads a page about the aunt murdering him, he thinks it's real and calls the gang to help him. This here is so much better than the previous films in the series and it makes you wonder why better stories weren't created for the previous ones. If anything ALFALFA'S AUNT makes you realize that the studio could have produced much better material for the kids had they simply put more effort into it. There are many funny jokes here but the great stuff happens towards the end once the boys are running around and trying to prevent the aunt from murdering Alfalfa. There's a hilarious joke involving a statue of Alfalfa and the father even gets some pretty funny lines earlier in the picture. Blake also deserves a lot of credit as she manages to get some big laughs out of the aunt who certainly not all there in the head. It seems most Our Gang fans hate these MGM shorts but I read several reviews stating that this here is one of the best and it certainly seems like it.

This M-G-M comedy short, Alfalfa's Aunt, is the one hundred seventy-sixth entry in the "Our Gang" series and the eighty-eighth talkie. Penelope (Marie Blake) is the title character in this short. She's visiting the Switzer household to the consternation of the father who's not thrilled about her visit. She had previously been an aspiring sculptor that this dad had to pose half-naked for so that's one reason he doesn't like her. This time, though, she's practicing mystery writing using the actual family name in the manuscript. Alf inadvertently gets a hold of a page-written in the first person-that mentions the planned murder of the nephew and gets scared of his supposed favorite relative. So when he tells the rest of the gang, they do all what they can to rid the house of sharp and poisonous objects...This was one of the funniest of the early M-G-M entries of the Our Gang series with great atmospherics courtesy of director George Sidney and cinematographer Jackson Rose. And Ms. Blake is suitably eccentric enough in the title role. So on that note, I highly recommend Alfalfa's Aunt.

Surprise! Alfalfa's Aunt is the rare example of an enjoyable MGM Our Gang short, which is sort of a miracle since it sprang from the usually unimaginative minds of writers Hal Law and Robert A. McGowan (director George Sidney undoubtedly deserves a lot of credit). This is one of the all-too-infrequent cases where MGM's production values enhance things rather than detract from the story, which is an atmospheric misunderstanding of Alfalfa's aunt Penelope (Marie Blake) letter which the gang interprets as her intention to bump her cow-licked nephew off so's to inherit the family fortune (Huh? Did anyone stop and look how the Switzer's live?). The kids set out to scare the wits out of her in order to save their pal. In the process of driving Penelope (who's an aspiring mystery writer rather than a murderer) out of the house there's a lot of inventive sight gags and creepy special effects... which conspire to make Alfalfa's Aunt one of the most watchable of the MGM years. Well done and definitely worthy of 10-minutes of your time.

Funny from start to finish. Alfalfa believes a page from his aunt's mystery novel is actually a letter stating that his aunt will murder him.

Everyone is spot on in this short. Marie Blake is hilarious as the Margaret Hamilton-esquire aunt. The actor playing Alfalfa's father is funny too, especially in a scene where he barely tolerates her reading from her manuscript.

Other funny scenes include Spanky reading the "letter," whereupon Porky reaches out his hand and says, "Goodbye, Alfie." Even minor things like little Gary Jasgar attempting the "All for One" hand sign are amusing. Altogether it's enjoyable, and ranks right up there with the Hal Roach shorts.

This episode was also entertaining, next to "Alfalfa's Double", Mary Blake(sister of MGM singing star, Jennete MacDonald)did very good portraying Aunt Penelopie. My favorite part was where she screams, every time she saw frightening things.



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