Li'l Abner

In comparison to the 1959 musical, this non-musical 1940 version seemed closer to the comic strip in ways the musical missed.

There was more of a feeling of shut-off from society in the 1940 film. Granville Owen was far better than Peter Palmer in '59.

Mammy bathing Pappy Yokum is a scene to behold all on its own. Granted the performers probably didn't need the makeup tho, as Granny Scragg did indeed make for a memorable character with no facial makeup.

Always nice to see Buster Keaton.

The very first person we would see was Daisy Mae (in bed, no less), so clearly there was supposed to be some launching of a screen beauty here.

This movie would make better use of the dregs of Dogpatch society, such as Fantastic Brown's wife saying it is time for his bath.

We also see Abijah Gooch (always liked that name) and Hannibal Hoops.

By far one of the best lines must be when Hairless Joe proclaims about the ten dollar reward for Earthquake McGoon, "ain't that much money in all tarnation!"

Peter Palmer may have been able to sing better, but Granville Owen got the character down much better.

The actor who portrayed Earthquake McGoon here would be the actual wrestler who inspired the character in the comic strip. Using the term 'actor' loosely, as he really didn't offer much of a performance.

This movie would have none of Capp's 'satirical humor' in it, but if the musical contained any of the strip's statements, it really didnt shine through there either.

Every urban culture has a myth about some primitive people that is essential to their identity. Often of course it is the original people that were displaced, and that's the most natural. The Nordic countries do it in this way. But that slot is filled in strange ways across the world. Brazil fills the spot in several ways, with natives, slaves, and the now relatively backwards Portugal being juggled.

In the US, we do something similar, though we handle our native Americans differently. We handle our guilt by overly romanticizing them, a role they eagerly accept. (Indeed, they have reinvented their history around this notion of nobility.) But we do have what everyone else has in this myth of a simple people. You can see this in movies, naturally, as movies are where we as a society mainly maintain our persistent myths these days.

So we have two types of movies that fit this. Blacks aren't allowed in this category. We handle them differently. Immigrants before the recent Hispanic wave of the 60s are particularly represented. The biggest recent example was "Big Fat Greek Wedding," which follows the rather strict model of embracing a sort of innocent stupidity while laughing at it. Its a sort of being in and being out at the same time.

And we have slight variant on this, something I'll call the hillbilly movie. This usually IS hillbillies, Clampets, or Ma and Pa Kettles. The purest form has them puzzled by shoes or plumbing fixtures. This movie is in that tradition.

Its a strange experience if you know the comic strip. That strip was highly political. It and "Pogo" were often the most intelligent things in US newspapers for decades. Al Capp was in a way the political opposite of Gary Trudeau who today does "Doonesbury," perhaps not as clever in narrative but very influential. The strip inspired the famous Lockheed skunkworks, which made secret spy stuff, the inspiration both in name and attitude.

If you know the history and the strip, you'd come to this expecting a deeply political and introspective thing. Instead, this snaps to the hillbilly model, except the characters have prosthetics and histories that resemble their drawn forms.

You might only want to watch this to see how easily movies embrace some of our cultural legacies and at the same time find it difficult to be insightful in useful ways.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

I was pleasantly surprised watching this comedy for a number of reasons. First, it was not as low budget and amateurish as I expected. It was actually a quite respectable B movie with make-up, sets, stunts and camera-work that matched the level of W.C. Fields and Laurel and Hardy features of the time.

Second, Buster Keaton's short role prefigured the third banana roles he would play in the American International Beach Movies of the 1960's. His on-screen time is less than five minutes, still, I suspect he had a lot more to do with the production of the movie than his bit part would indicate. The gags have a Keatonesque quality. For example the ending scenes of the women chasing men are reminiscent of the ending scenes in his "Seven Chances." The world of Dogpatch has a self contained, parody of the intellectual world quality, as does many of the comedic worlds created by Keaton (See his "Three Ages" for example.

The humor in the movie foreshadows the hillbilly humor of the 1960's television series, "The Beverly Hillbillies." A recent Lucille Ball biog movie suggested that Keaton had played a major part in the success of the 1950's television series "I Love Lucy." If Keaton did play a role in designing some of the gags in this movie, one might suggest that Keaton was in some sense responsible for a great deal of the successful comedies of the 1950's and 1960's.

On the other hand, the producers might have hired them only because they liked his silent film work and he might not have had any input to the film other than his two or three days on set in his bit part. I wonder if anybody else has any information about the role Keaton played in this still charming movie.

I had the DVD of this version of Al Capp's comic strip for years but it's only been now that I even bothered to watch it. The reason was because since I've been reviewing the Our Gang shorts-and films outside the series featuring at least one member from the series in it-in chronological order, this was next on the list. In this case, former member Mickey Daniels has a cameo in which he does his famous laugh. I also found out that a few supporting characters from various eps of the series are also in this movie like Johnny Arthur (Spanky's father in Anniversary Trouble, Darla's father in Night 'n' Gales and Feed 'Em and Weep), Hank Mann (Drunk worker at train station in Alfalfa's Double, Butch's father in Bubbling Troubles), Marie Blake (Butch's mother in Practical Jokers, the title role in Alfalfa's Aunt), and Edgar Kennedy (the cop in various OG shorts that starred Jackie Cooper). Of them all, only Kennedy was funny enough to me. There's some amusing sound effects and some pretty good visual gags and silent comedian Buster Keaton wasn't too bad with what he was given. In summary, this version of Li'l Abner was okay as entertainment.

I came across the budget DVD of this one some time back though I never got around to renting it, not so much because of, say, Leonard Maltin’s lowly opinion but rather the unavailability of the later and better-known musical version from 1959. Consequently, I’d previously been interested in it more as a Buster Keaton film (in fact, many a Silent comedian make an appearance here) than as an adaptation of the Al Capp comic strip – but, having now found the latter as well, I decided to make it a double-bill! In retrospect, Keaton’s role is minor (playing the Indian Lonesome Polecat who has a long-haired and eyeless giant for a sidekick) despite the ballyhoo regarding his presence on the DVD front cover.

Still, despite its intrinsic cornball nature, the film proved less oppressive than I had anticipated: being a low-budget production and a brief 73 minutes in length, the plot (as seen in the musical version) has been considerably streamlined – focusing solely on the Sadie Hawkins’ Day race (where the unwedded females of Dogpatch pursue the community’s eligible bachelors) and the character of the villainous Earthquake McGoon. Even so, the piece’s essence is already there – including the unexpected earthiness of the girls; it goes without saying, however, that the later film is the more satisfactory rendition of LI’L ABNER.