I'm from Arkansas

People flock to a small Arkansas town after a prize pig delivers another huge litter of young. Much music and some humor results.

Think Petticoat Junction and Green Acres or Hee Haw and then go even more rural and backward. This is a real hillbilly comedy where all of the people in the town look like your stereotypical hillbillies with the hats and the beards. Its a Snuffy Smith cartoon brought to life, only more so (Actually Snuffy had two live action films made about him). Amusing to a point, the problem for me was that the film is almost a steady stream of country music. Don't get me wrong I like country music, but there is so much of it here that there really isn't a plot so much as spoken passages to get you to the next musical number. The result is everyone is a cliché of one sort or another, simply because its the easiest way of telling who anyone is. The jokes which are one liners or arise out of the clichés are okay, but very few of them are laugh out loud funny since many are also forms of ones we've heard before.

Can you tell I'm not a fan? Your tolerance for low brow countrified jokes and "constant" country music performances will determine your mileage.

While this is a somewhat entertaining movie, I have to wonder how people from Arkansas truly felt when they saw this movie (I highly doubt that this movie played in Arkansas anywhere). Playing the residents there as slow, stupid hillbillies is not exactly the way to promote the state, and would NEVER be made today. The story here is quite simple, several groups go down to Pitchfork, Arkansas to exploit the town's notoriety when the town pig has a litter of 14 piglets. Along the way, hillbilly music happens. Lots and lots of it. I love the yodelers. The rest I can take or leave. Not a bad movie, it's just terribly stereotypical.

Wacky Petticoat Junction type movie now in public domain.

Townsfolk all move slow.

Esmeralda the town pig just gave birth to a slew of liberals.

Not sure how many cuz no one can count.

We even get to see the Pathe chicken for a minute! Huh? What's that doing there? Anyway the pig gets press all over the globe.

A show producer reads about it and wants some of the action.

He takes the troupe to Arkansas.

The plan is to find out what made the pig spawn so many liberal.

Craziness ensues.

It's a very watchable movie that could never be made today.

This film is not quite a classic, but it did have one delightful surprise for me.

Iris Colleen Summers, aka Mary Ford, Les Paul's singing partner, is about 20 years old in this film and sings in three songs as one of the Sunshine Girls trio for Jimmy Wakely's band. She has a brief solo in the first song. It was her only film appearance before working with Les Paul.

Les Paul and Mary Ford had numerous top ten hits in the early 1950s, including "How High the Moon" and "Tiger Rag".

Otherwise, this film includes a couple examples of Cliff Nazarro's famous doubletalk and two delightful yodeling songs from Carolina Cotton.

I'd say the music takes a front seat to the comedy here.

"Guy takes a girl for a sleigh ride in the middle of July!"

Juniper and Ma Alden's pig Esmeralda has 18 piglets which apparently is news back in 1944. This is the quirkiest romantic comedy with music, ventriloquism, southern accents, and playing acting at being "yokels".

The real reason to watch this odd gem is really the music, particularly Jimmy Wakely and The Sunshine Girls. I particularly loved their western take on "You are my Sunshine". The other highlight is the handsome star Bruce Bennett, who plays Bob Hamline. Bob and his band take a break down in Arkansas in Pitchfork Springs, Esmeralda's hometown...which conveniently subverts a slick company from taking advantage of Ma Alden with the help of a theater girl he has his eye on named Doris.

Another musical highlight is " If You Can't Go Right, Don't Go Wrong" by Jimmy Wakely and The Pied Pipers.

If you are a music aficionado I highly recommend checking this quirky film out...especially if you like The Pied Pipers and their music like "The Hit of The Season".