Alfalfa's Aunt

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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This short was produced by MGM as an Our Gang comedy. Up until 1938, the films were made by Hal Roach and were generally funnier and more enjoyable. However, MGM bought the rights to the series and continued making them until 1944. Like most of the later shorts, this one stars Alfalfa and Spanky. Buckwheat, Porky and several others are on hand for the fun.

Alfalfa's parents are going out and he's going to be babysat by his Aunt Penelope (Marie Blake*). She loves reading and writing murder mysteries and dopey Alfalfa starts believing she's a murderer. So, he calls over his friends to help protect him. In the process, the Aunt believes the place is filled with murderers and all sorts of craziness ensues.

So is this any good? Yes. While it's not at all subtle and is, like all the later films, very short, it's got a few laughs. Not exactly brilliant but enjoyable.



*Marie Blake was a contract player for MGM known mostly for the Dr. Kildare series. Later, on TV, and using the name Blossom Rock, she played Grandmama on "The Addams Family". In real life, she was Jeanette MacDonald's sister.

I was pleased at the wonderful, sharp images and the nicely woven plot of this Our Gang comedy. Alfalfa's aunt comes to visit. Alfalfa's father finds her insufferable. She has all kinds of weird mannerisms and is working on writing a mystery novel. When a page from her novel is found by her nephew, he thinks that she is going to kill him in his sleep. He enlists the gang to help keep him alive. A good quality offering, showing the kids were pretty funny and nice little actors.

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.

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.