Director: CHARLES LAMONT. Original story and screenplay: Jack Henley. Based on characters created by Betty MacDonald. Photography: George Robinson. Film editor: Leonard Weiner. Art directors: Bernard Herzbrun, Robert Boyle. Set decorators: Russell A. Gausman, Joe Kish. Costumes: Rosemary Odell. Make-up: Bud Westmore. Hair styles: Joan St Oegger. Music director: Joseph Gershenson. Dances choreographed by Hal Belfer. Sound recording: Leslie I. Carey, Corson Jowett. Producer: Leonard Goldstein. A Universal- International picture.
Copyright 5 March 1953 (in notice: 1952) by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. No New York showcase. U.S. release: April 1953. U.K. release through General Film Distributors (on the lower half of a double bill): 3 November 1952 (sic). Australian release: 7 March 1953. Sydney opening at the Lyceum. 75 minutes.
U.K. and Australian release title: MA AND PA KETTLE GO TO Paris. Alternative U.K. title: MA AND PA KETTLE IN Paris.
SYNOPSIS: A comedy. The Kettles become involved with spies and the Secret Service during a vacation in Paris. — Copyright summary.
NOTES: Counting The Egg and I, number six of the ten-picture series.
COMMENT: All the Kettle movies — except the last two with no Percy Kilbride — were so super-popular around working-class neighborhoods, they usually played as the lead picture on Saturday nights. This extraordinary enthusiasm should have rung warning bells for astute showmen. If their patrons lapped up this pap so eagerly, what was going to stop them enjoying similar stuff on TV, free of charge? But few exhibitors, if any, saw the TV crunch ahead. Instead they actually prepared their patrons for desertion.
Universal made a fortune in domestic markets from Ma and Pa Kettle. And so did all cinemas lucky enough to be located in country areas or those capital city suburbs with a substantial number of blue- collar workers. If all the Kettle films were so stupendously popular in America (and abroad in countries like Australia and New Zealand), why then (with the exception of The Egg and I) did none of them figure in the trade papers' annual lists of box-office champions?
The answer is simple. They all always played on double bills, even in their city showcase engagements. Receipts and attendance figures therefore were split — invariably fifty-fifty.
So there we have yet another reason why box-office lists do not necessarily give a true indication of a movie's popularity, no matter on what basis the lists are compiled; whether on number of admission tickets sold, total cinema receipts, or even gross rentals received by the distributors.
Regarding the movie itself, as Pa observes in the film, the writers are "scraping the bottom of the barrel" for this one, with the Kettles outwitting international spies in Universal's back-lot Paris.
Actually, production values are rather shoddy — despite the surprisingly little use of stock footage. The direction is as infantile as the script and the acting as talentless as the direction. It's sad to see a fine actor like Ray Collins reduced to stooging for Pa Kettle.
The climax with Pa stepping on the toes of assorted gendarmes has a few brief seconds of comic promise — but one's expectations are short-lived.
The other entries in this lamentable series at least have an attractive female sub-lead — but this one even lacks that asset.
Copyright 5 March 1953 (in notice: 1952) by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. No New York showcase. U.S. release: April 1953. U.K. release through General Film Distributors (on the lower half of a double bill): 3 November 1952 (sic). Australian release: 7 March 1953. Sydney opening at the Lyceum. 75 minutes.
U.K. and Australian release title: MA AND PA KETTLE GO TO Paris. Alternative U.K. title: MA AND PA KETTLE IN Paris.
SYNOPSIS: A comedy. The Kettles become involved with spies and the Secret Service during a vacation in Paris. — Copyright summary.
NOTES: Counting The Egg and I, number six of the ten-picture series.
COMMENT: All the Kettle movies — except the last two with no Percy Kilbride — were so super-popular around working-class neighborhoods, they usually played as the lead picture on Saturday nights. This extraordinary enthusiasm should have rung warning bells for astute showmen. If their patrons lapped up this pap so eagerly, what was going to stop them enjoying similar stuff on TV, free of charge? But few exhibitors, if any, saw the TV crunch ahead. Instead they actually prepared their patrons for desertion.
Universal made a fortune in domestic markets from Ma and Pa Kettle. And so did all cinemas lucky enough to be located in country areas or those capital city suburbs with a substantial number of blue- collar workers. If all the Kettle films were so stupendously popular in America (and abroad in countries like Australia and New Zealand), why then (with the exception of The Egg and I) did none of them figure in the trade papers' annual lists of box-office champions?
The answer is simple. They all always played on double bills, even in their city showcase engagements. Receipts and attendance figures therefore were split — invariably fifty-fifty.
So there we have yet another reason why box-office lists do not necessarily give a true indication of a movie's popularity, no matter on what basis the lists are compiled; whether on number of admission tickets sold, total cinema receipts, or even gross rentals received by the distributors.
Regarding the movie itself, as Pa observes in the film, the writers are "scraping the bottom of the barrel" for this one, with the Kettles outwitting international spies in Universal's back-lot Paris.
Actually, production values are rather shoddy — despite the surprisingly little use of stock footage. The direction is as infantile as the script and the acting as talentless as the direction. It's sad to see a fine actor like Ray Collins reduced to stooging for Pa Kettle.
The climax with Pa stepping on the toes of assorted gendarmes has a few brief seconds of comic promise — but one's expectations are short-lived.
The other entries in this lamentable series at least have an attractive female sub-lead — but this one even lacks that asset.