Ask 411 Movies for 07.20.09: The Next Column You Read!

Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 07.20.2009

Eli Roth, from radio to big screen, Undercover Blues, Ma and Pa Kettle and Harry Potter and Voldemort settle their differences with a rap duel


From YouTube this week in honor of the new Harry Potter movie, Harry and Voldemort settle their differences the old fashioned way, with a rap battle.



From Big Lots this week I picked up the second season of "The West Wing" and volume two of "Animaniacs" for six bucks each. I also grabbed the two Lou Ferrigno Hercules movies. If you remember my recent stories from the Monster Bash, I'm a bit sour on the guy, but I do own his Sinbad movie already. It feels like completing the collection.

As vain as it might seem, I do occasionally Google myself because my stuff both here on 411 and for my newspaper job winds up floating around the internet and I like to see where it goes. I found a recent post on the BronteBlog referring to a recent question regarding flashbacks in films where a I mentioned 1939's Wuthering Heights as an early use of flashback in film as it related to flashbacks as an ages old literary device.

I have to admit that the blogger fairly called me out here for using Wikipedia as a primary source and mentioned earlier usages of film flashbacks with 1901's shot "Histoire d'un Crime" and 1935's Devil is a Woman. I would have appreciated an email on this correction and wanted to mention it here in the interest of giving the best information to my readers that I can.



Q: Isn't Eli Roth doing a full version of the Thanksgiving trailer he did? Or am I thinking of something else?
-Dennett316

A: It's been rumored, but nothing concrete has been said. Roth will be seen as an actor in the upcoming Inglourious Basterds. He was working on adapting the Stephen King book "Cell," but earlier this month said he was out of that. He's also working with The RZA on the martial arts film Man with the Iron Fist and has said that he wants to do a film all of fake trailers to be called Trailer Trash. Like a lot of things in Hollywood, it's all talk until you at least see a trailer. But how do you make a trailer of a movie made of trailer?

Q: Hey Leonard,
What movies started out originally as radio shows? The only two I can think of are War of the Worlds and The Phantom.

Also, can you help me out with the name of a TV show I watched back I think in the early 90s. It is very similar to MMA with many martial arts experts coming together and one of them becoming champion. In order to fight for the title, you needed to get like 10 medals. If you lost the title fight, you needed to start all over again with zero medals. You get a medal by like winning a mini tournament and each tournament took place on one show. The show was on saturday mornings and I think only lasted 1 or 2 seasons. It was also scripted as heck even though i thought it was real at the time.
Thanks,
-David

A: Boog and Andrew answered your second question on the comments last week. The show was "WMAC Masters." The syndicated show lasted two seasons from 1995 to 1997. Bruce Lee's daughter Shannon hosted the first season and the show focused on imparting real life lessons to the kids watching. Shannon was gone the second season and the storylines were more fantasy based. The real life martial artists, many stuntmen who worked on "Power Rangers," engaged in staged fights in pursuit of the Dragon Star trophy. During fights there were on screen scoring and health gauges giving the feel of a video game come to life. WMAC stood for the fictional World Martial Arts Council. The series was canceled due to low ratings and the action figures not selling.



Last week Andrew mentioned "The Shadow" and Jake G confirmed that Superman had a radio show too. In fact, the catchphrase "Up, up and away" came from radio so people would know when Superman would take off for flight. Many pulp and comic characters had radio shows along with films and television shows. Others would be Archie of Archie Comics, Blondie, Boston Blackie, Buck Rogers, Bulldog Drummond, Chandu the Magician, Dick Tracy, The Green Hornet, Jungle Jim, Little Orphan Annie, The Lone Ranger, Mr. and Mrs. North, My Friend Irma, Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Pete Kelly's Blues, Red Ryder, Rin-Tin-Tin, Stella Dallas and Tarzan.

Many radio shows were also later adapted for television including "The Abbott and Costello Show," "Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett," "Meet the Press," "Amos N Andy," "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts," "The Cisco Kid," "Death Valley Days," "Dragnet," "Face the Nation," "Father Knows Best," "Gunsmoke," "The Jack Benny Show," "Life of Riley," "The Milton Berle Show," "Perry Mason," "Truth or Consequences" and "You Bet Your Life."

There have also been some inverses where the film came first. After The Third Man Orson Welles starred in "The Lives of Harry Lime" about the wartime adventures of his character from the film. There was also "Adventures of the Thin Man."

Q: Don't know if you covered it-- but an underrated comedy I just saw again for the first time in like 10 years was "Undercover Blues" this movie is so terrific just for the way Quaid & Turner play the WHOLE movie off like it's a walk in the park... just a fun flick I had long forgotten
M>X



A: In the film from 1993, Kathleen Turner and Dennis Quaid play top flight married FBI agents on maternity leave in New Orleans with their first child, a girl. While there they have to deal with their boss wanting them to do a job, smugglers, counter-spies, local police and other loonies. The original title of the movie was Cloak and Diaper, I kid you not. Dave Chappelle has an early film role as Ozzie.

With space to fill this week, Turner Classic Movies had a mini-marathon of Ma and Pa Kettle films last Friday. I think that's one of the few film series we've never covered, so let's do so.

The Egg and I (1947): To tie in with above, this was also adapted into a radio show. In fact I should mention that many popular movies were turned into radio plays. Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert star as a young married couple trying to make a go of a chicken farm. Their neighbors are Ma (Marjorie Main) and Pa Kettle (Percy Kilbride) with their 15 kids. Their oldest is Tom (Richard Long of "The Big Valley"). Main was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar. The movie was later turned into a TV show and later still was the inspiration for "Green Acres."



Pa is slow thinking, slow acting, gentle, lazy and very thin. Ma is more robust, loud talking, bawdy and a bit smarter and quicker than Pa, but not too much. The characters were so popular that they were spawned off into their own film series. They also had a short-lived cartoon and serialized TV show. Oliver Blake and Teddy Hart were regulars in the series as Indians devoted to Pa named Geoduck and Crowbar. Emory Parnell played salesman and friend of the family Billy.

Ma and Pa Kettle (1949): Pa wins a contest that places the family into a new state of the art house. This coincides with their oldest son Tom returning from college. Tom meets on a train and falls in love with Kim (Meg Randall), who is a newspaper reporter that wants to do a story on the poor and simple Kettles moving into the ritzy, new home.

Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town (1950): Pa wins another contest, this one gives them a free trip to New York City where Tom and Kim are living. They can't go without anyone to watch the kids. However, a bank robber (Charles McGraw) falls into their midst pretending to be a poet. He agrees to watch the kids if the Kettles will take a bag to his brother. Unbeknownst to them, the bag is filled with stolen money. Tom eventually gets wise and gets his parents to help catch the crooks. Jim Backus of "Gilligan's Island" has a small part as a gangster.

Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm (1951): Tom and Kim return home as Kim is expecting her first child. Kim's parents the Parkers (Ray Collins and Barbara Brown) come to visit. Her father is ok, but her mother is a snooty battle-axe. The Kettles leaves them with the fancy house and return to their old farm. There Pa finds uranium on their land, but so do two moneygrubbers who try to buy the farm under the pretensions of starting a hunting club. This was Richard Long's final film of the series.

Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair (1952): With Tom out of the picture, daughter Rosie (Lori Nelson) becomes the lead kid. The family wants to send her to college, so Pa tries to earn money at the county fair in a horse race while Ma enters a baking contest. Rosie could care less as she meets and falls for Marvin (James Best of "Dukes of Hazzard").



Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation (1953): The Kettles are on vacation in Paris with the Parkers. While trying to buy racy postcards, Pa is slipped a letter to give to secret agent Adolph Wade (Peter Brocco). He's killed by counter-spies the Krafts (Bodil Miller and Sig Ruman), who then try to get the letter from Pa. Pa's first name is revealed to be Franklin.

Ma and Pa Kettle at Home (1954): Son Elwin (Brett Halsey) is inline to get a full scholarship to an agricultural college. He's one of two finalists in an essay contest and the judges (Alan Mowbray and Ross Elliott) decide to spend a weekend with the family of each finalist. Pa tries to make several additions to the old farmhouse to impress the judges, but a rainstorm washes everything away.

Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1955): This was filmed in 1952, but not released until three years later. Kilbride had retired from acting with the last film and this marks his last appearance in the series as Pa. Cousin Rodney (Loring Smith) asks for help with his pineapple farm in Hawaii after an illness. Ma, Pa and Rosie go to help. Pa causes a major explosion and gets kidnapped in a case of mistaken identity.

The Kettles in the Ozarks (1956): Ma and the kids go to the Ozarks to visit Pa's brothers Sedgewick Kettle (Arthur Hunnicutt). Ma tries to play matchmaker in getting Sedgewick to marry Miss Bedelia (Una Merkel) after stringing her along for 20 years. Bonnie Franklin of "One Day at a Time" makes her film debut, I believe she's one of the younger Kettle kids.

The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm (1957): Parker Fennelly comes in as Pa, but this would be Main's last feature. Matchmaking plays into it again as Ma and Pa try to hook up lumberman Brad (John Smith) with socialite Sally (Gloria Talbott). Ma teaches her how to be a hick to attract the simple Brad.



Don't die.

"You should have seen these guys, complete amateurs. Biggest risk was I'd fall down laughing and hurt myself."