Alfalfa's Aunt

Alfalfa's Aunt (1939)

*** (out of 4)

The seventh film in the MGM-Our Gang series turns out to be the best one so far. Alfalfa's aunt (Marie Blake) comes over for her yearly visit, which doesn't sit too well with the kid's father but there's nothing they can do. It turns out that the aunt is writing a murder-mystery but using the family member's real names. When Alfalfa reads a page about the aunt murdering him, he thinks it's real and calls the gang to help him. This here is so much better than the previous films in the series and it makes you wonder why better stories weren't created for the previous ones. If anything ALFALFA'S AUNT makes you realize that the studio could have produced much better material for the kids had they simply put more effort into it. There are many funny jokes here but the great stuff happens towards the end once the boys are running around and trying to prevent the aunt from murdering Alfalfa. There's a hilarious joke involving a statue of Alfalfa and the father even gets some pretty funny lines earlier in the picture. Blake also deserves a lot of credit as she manages to get some big laughs out of the aunt who certainly not all there in the head. It seems most Our Gang fans hate these MGM shorts but I read several reviews stating that this here is one of the best and it certainly seems like it.

Marie Blake's greatest claim to fame was being Jeanette MacDonald's sister, or maybe for playing Grandmama on the 1960s sitcom THE ADDAMS FAMILY (where her talents were fairly wasted on a tiny part) but to me this talented character actress will always be Aunt Penelope, the pretentious old biddy aunt of Alfalfa in the classic Our Gang comedy short ALFALFA'S AUNT (1939), surely on everyone's list as one of the best OG comedies and certainly one of the greatest from the MGM era.

Alfalfa's mother's sister comes to stay with the family for a period much to his father's annoyance. Aunt Penelope is apparently an old maid with artistic delusions, an amateur sculptor and now embarking on an attempted career as a murder mystery novelist. Aunt Penelope is to sit a night with Alfalfa as his parents enjoy a night away. Alfalfa meanwhile has come across his aunt's book manuscript (written in first person form) in which the narrator announces her plans to murder her nephew to inherit the family fortune. This terrifies Alfalfa and he enlists the gang to secretly stay with him that night in order to protect him from harm. The gang makes such a racket in their hidden guarding they manage to scare the *beep* scared out of not only Alfalfa but his jittery aunt as well! And their actions spook the gang, too!!

The film has a wonderful GHOST AND MR CHICKEN type vibe about it and manages to be amusingly creepy in haunted house fashion even if this is just midnight at Alfalfa's own two-story home.

All of the performances in this short are wonderful most especially the wonderfully eccentric Marie Blake and her definitely nephew under the skin Alfalfa. Alfalfa Switzer was one of the greatest child comedians of all-time and this episode is one of his best showcases. Spanky and Buckwheat are good too and it is fun to see the underrated Porky Lee get one of his better showcases in the series with good gag lines and bits. I was delighted to discover Alfalfa's mother was played by the silent film star Barbara Bedford (THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS), I never realized that before seeing her name on the IMDb credits.

This was Aunt Penelope's only appearance in an OG episode (Marie Blake had previously appeared once as Tommy "Butch" Bond's mother in a minor role) although she makes such a vivid impression she's certainly among the series' most memorable adult characters, indeed she's mentioned in at least one other episode. Scotty Beckett would later guest star as Alfalfa's Cousin Wilbur in two episodes and his plain, glasses-wearing, nerdy demeanor suggests perhaps that he may be Aunt Penelope's son but this was never confirmed on those episodes and indeed in her lone OG episode Aunt Penelope's personality seems to be in keeping with the stereotype of a rather cross, melodramatic old maid. One wishes there had been at least another episode with Marie Blake and not only Miss Phipps had come back, but Aunt Penelope as well.

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.

This M-G-M comedy short, Alfalfa's Aunt, is the one hundred seventy-sixth entry in the "Our Gang" series and the eighty-eighth talkie. Penelope (Marie Blake) is the title character in this short. She's visiting the Switzer household to the consternation of the father who's not thrilled about her visit. She had previously been an aspiring sculptor that this dad had to pose half-naked for so that's one reason he doesn't like her. This time, though, she's practicing mystery writing using the actual family name in the manuscript. Alf inadvertently gets a hold of a page-written in the first person-that mentions the planned murder of the nephew and gets scared of his supposed favorite relative. So when he tells the rest of the gang, they do all what they can to rid the house of sharp and poisonous objects...This was one of the funniest of the early M-G-M entries of the Our Gang series with great atmospherics courtesy of director George Sidney and cinematographer Jackson Rose. And Ms. Blake is suitably eccentric enough in the title role. So on that note, I highly recommend Alfalfa's Aunt.

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.