So's Your Aunt Emma!

One day they may clean up the picture but when you get into the story, the bad copy may just add that 1942 ambiance.

A spinster known as Aunt Emma (Zazu Pitts) to her friends missed her chance to marry a prizefighter. However, after his death, she takes a chance to help his son to become a great fighter. She travels from a small Midwest town to the big city. There in her efforts to help him, she crosses paths with several criminal types. They spot her umbrella and mistake her for the guntote'n Ma Parker criminal type. Soon the bad guys are being dispatched like flies. Maybe she is Ma Parker. Let us watch and see who is next.

More and more lately, I've been seeing films made during the 30s and 40s by the poverty row studios that I find to be competently made and enjoyable, and this one is no exception. Zasu Pitts really shines as Aunt Emma, who befriends the boxer son of her former boxer beau. There are a good bunch of character actors which you will recognize like Warren Hymer and Dick Elliot (The mayor in the early "Andy Griffith Show".) But this is Zasu's show all the way as she battles gangsters and stuffy sisters. Monogram made this and you will recognize the music over the main titles as the same heard in "Let's Go Collegiate" and "Freckles Comes Home". This seems to be an unofficial theme song for the Monogram comedies of the period. I saw this streaming on YouTube complete in one download, and the quality was good, with none of the audio going out of sync as I have seen in some longer YouTube videos. If you are a fan of Zasu Pitts, you will enjoy this entertaining trifle which runs for barely over one hour.

What makes this daft little crime thriller so much fun, is the underlying premiss that even the nastiest of criminal types will still defer to a determined, feisty old lady - even if they would otherwise happily pull out the teeth of their enemies with a blunt screwdriver! Zasu Pitts is just such an old spinster, who becomes ensnared with a gang who are rigging boxing matches before unexpectedly (and really completely implausibly) being implicated with the deadly murderess "Ma Parker"! It's a lovely, simple little yarn - peppered with some wonderfully Mary Poppins-esque language; never a cuss word crosses her lips; and her ability to get squiffy by just holding the glass adds a gentle, friendly, class to this simple story. There are others in the cast, but they don't - nor d.

Aunt emma (zasu pitts) gets caught up in a fight fixing mess when she's mistaken for the leader of a gang. She gets rough and tough to catch the crooks, even though she's a prim and proper young lady. It's all pretty over the top, and that's the running gag. And the city editor fires the one guy that has the whole story. It's okay. Emma saves the day, but the last twenty minutes were shot in the dark, so we never really see what happens. Pretty annoying. And right at the end, it sounds like one of the lines is dubbed out, so we don't even hear the punch line for what the old lady said. Even the captions couldn't catch it. More annoying. Keep an eye out for dick elliott.. he was the mayor in andy griffith. Directed by jean yarbrough. He had worked with kings of comedy hal roach and abbott and costello. Story by harry hervey. Pitts had started in the early silents, and made a zillion talkies, but was probably best known for mad, mad world. Bud mctaggart died young at age 39 in a swimming pool accident.

It's an eye-catching title, sure to get attention of wartime audiences looking for escape. Pitts' character Aunt Emma is an inventive comedic creation. On one hand, she's a sedate old maid ruled by two prim sisters; on the other, once outside their influence and taking up with newspaper reporter Terry (Pryor), she gains self-confidence and transforms subtly into an assertive mastermind. Too bad the clotted narrative crowds her transformative humor; that is, until the end when she gets needed showcase having mastered the street-tough lingo of that day. It's like Mother Hubbard sounding like Al Capone.

The supporting cast includes familiar faces, such as Fowley, Hymer, Elliot, and Coffin. But I especially glom onto Elizabeth Russell. With her cat-like eyes, once you see her you don't forget her, as the great Val Lewton knew when he cast her in a number of his classic horror films of the 40's, eg. Cat People (1942).

All in all, it's an unusual light-hearted crime flick that unfortunately piles on too much plot that the clever Pitts and her fluttery humor must compete with.