Kentucky Kernels [Blu-ray]

Director: George Stevens George Stevens

Overview

Though not the best of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey's starring vehicles, Kentucky Kernels turned out to be the team's biggest financial success. Wheeler and Woolsey star as unemployed vaudevillians Willie and Elmer, who through a series of convoluted circumstances become the guardians of mischievous orphan Spanky Milford (Spanky McFarland). The boys get into plenty of trouble thanks to Spanky's predilection for breaking windows, but worse is to come: When it turns out that Spanky has inherited the Milford homestead in Kentucky, our heroes find themselves smack in the middle of an old-fashioned mountain feud. Elmer manages to arrange a détente between the warring Milfords and Wakefields, but thanks to the precocious Spanky, the feud resumes -- much to the dismay of Willie, who's fallen in love with gorgeous Gloria Wakefield (Mary Carlisle). Willie and Elmer manage to stave off the hostile Wakefields by substituting berries for bullets, but the story doesn't come to a conclusion until the boys are nearly knocked off by a firing squad. Praised to hilt for being "cleaner" than the previous Wheeler-Woolsey epics, Kentucky Kernels seems disappointing today when compared to the team's classic Diplomaniacs and Hips Hips Hooray; additionally, Spanky McFarland sabotages several potentially hilarious sequences with the most obnoxious performance of his career. Even so, the film is consistently entertaining, especially during the delightful Bert Kalmar-Harry Ruby musical number "One Little Kiss," performed by everyone in the cast from Wheeler and Woolsey to Noah Beery Sr!

Product Details

Release Date:	09/08/2020
UPC:	0883929718153
Original Release:	1934
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Language:	English
Time:	1:15:00
Sales rank:	31,378

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Bert Wheeler	Willie
Robert Woolsey	Elmer
Mary Carlisle	Gloria
Spanky McFarland	Spanky
Noah Beery Sr.	Col. Wakefield
Lucille La Verne	Hannah Milford
Willie Best	Buckshot
William Pawley	John Wakefield
Louis Mason	Col. Ezra Milford
Frank McGlynn Jr.	Jess Wakefield
Richard Alexander	Hank Wakefield
Paul Page	Jerry Bronson
Margaret Dumont	Mrs. Baxter

Technical Credits

Bert Kalmar

Harry Ruby

Fred Guiol

George Stevens	Director
Bert Kalmar	Screenwriter
Harry Ruby	Screenwriter
Fred Guiol	Screenwriter
H.N. Swanson	Producer