L'oeuf et moi

I found this to be a very cute and charming little movie. Claudette Colbert was a hoot as the long suffering Betty, and Fred MacMurray was equally as good as Bob, trying so hard to achieve success but neglecting Betty in the process. Ma and Pa Kettle steal the whole film out from under them, so it's no big surprise they got their own film series after this. A warm and funny movie all around.

I first watched this movie about 5 years ago, and I enjoyed it then. I wanted to watch it again, because I'd since seen a few movies with Marjorie Main. I enjoyed her performance, but it was the role played by Claudette Colbert that blew me away. I thought she was better here than in "It Happened One Night", when she won an Oscar. Ma and Pa Kettle stole the show the last time I watched it, but this time around, I was more interested in the lives of Betty and Bob MacDonald. Ms. Colbert and Fred MacMurray had such an easy-going, natural interaction, which I overlooked on first viewing. Isn't that the sign of good acting? When you don't even notice they're acting?

Claudette Colbert & Fred MacMurray star in this screwball comedy; a film that had to be a precursor to "Green Acres"...there's even a Mr. Haney. Although adequate, who steals the show are Ma & Pa Kettle. Marjorie Main is a natural, and because of this, their debut film, The Kettles became a household name.

This movie was based on a book of the same title. The woman who wrote the book, Betty MacDonald, wrote it with her experiences as a young wife living on a chicken farm in the Pacific Northwest. It is worth noting that in the film, Claudette Colbert's character's name is Betty and Fred MacMurray's character's name is Bob (her husband's name). As for the film, we are not told exactly where the characters are supposed to be living although it is safe to say they are far away in the country. What we do know is that Fred MacMurray plays a recent war veteran who tells Claudette Colbert, his wife, that he has just purchased a chicken farm and that he intends for them to live out there so they can raise chickens. This is the beginning of what is a riot because they are both city people trying to get used to life on the farm. Bob (Fred MacMurray's character) is overly enthusiastic about the whole move but one can tell right away that much as Betty (Claudette Colbert's character) tries to be supportive, she is not as taken by it. First of all, the farm house is decrepit, they have to deal with the Kettle clan (especially Pa Kettle who is always asking for things but never returning favors) as well as a seductive woman who has a mechanical farm next door and has eyes for Bob.

The movie is a riot as we see the couple dealing with everything I have mentioned. I have watched the movie a number of times and even have the video tape of it. I sometimes try to imagine what it would be like if someone said to me one day, "You're moving on a farm tomorrow. Now go to work!" Well, I guess it would probably not be much different from this film!

The Egg and I is based on a best selling book by Betty McDonald concerning the happenings around an urban city dwelling woman, Claudette Colbert playing Betty McDonald, whose husband, Fred MacMurray, gets an agricultural urge after service in World War II. Back to nature so to speak. They both adapt, he a great deal easier than she did and that's part of the plot.

Doing a little research on the movie and book, I found that Betty McDonald was a resident of Seattle and where they moved was not anywhere near hillbilly country, but to a rural part of Washington state. But of course what Universal was doing was giving in to stereotypes. They couldn't make Ma and Pa Kettle and the rest of the characters convincing without transferring The Egg and I to an Ozark/Appalachian background.

Knowing that it does make me curious as to how the Kettles and the rest of the rustic neighbors were portrayed in the book.

Still somebody apparently knew what they were doing because The Egg and I with a built in audience of those who had already bought Betty McDonald's book cleaned up at the box office. And Percy Kilbride and Marjorie Main as Ma and Pa Kettle and their growing family became such a hit it spawned a series of money making films for Universal Studios for the next decade.

How popular were the Kettles? I remember back as a lad watching an episode of Gomer Pyle who when he got a pass to go into town took in a revival film of the Ma and Pa Kettle series. In places like Mayberry, North Carolina the Kettles attained a cult status. Marjorie Main got a Best Supporting Actress nomination, but lost to Celeste Holm for Gentlemen's Agreement. She and Percy Kilbride played variations on their Kettle characters in most of the remaining films in their respective careers.

Still it's Fred and Claudette's film despite the Kettles and both settle into roles very comfortable for both of them. Next to the Kettles, the supporting player who comes off best is Louise Allbritton, the mantrap neighbor who's got her eye on Fred MacMurray. You will also like Billy House as the rotund peddler with everything, even himself for the needy housewife.

Rural Washington state had to wait until the Nineties for a film set in that part of the country. It was hardly a flattering picture that Tobias Wolff painted of where he grew up in This Boy's Life. No rustics like the Kettles in that Leonardo DiCaprio/Robert DeNiro film.

Probably the most successful imitator of The Egg and I had to be the CBS classic series Green Acres. Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor were even more out of place in the Ozarks than Colbert and MacMurray were. They too dealt with a collection of rustics that looked like they stepped from the cast of The Egg and I.

They even made Green Acres a success without the Kettles.