Watch I'm from Arkansas For Free

Let's be realistic.

Absolutely Fantastic

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Oddly enough Lew Landers director of such horrors classics as "The Raven" (1935) and "The Return of the Vampire" (1943) is at helm here bringing forth to us this low-below-low budget tired redneck stereotype filled too musical-hardly a comedy.After it makes national headlines that Esmeralda a pig gave birth to eighteen piglets multiple visitors overrun the overly southern small town of Pitchfork. Amongst them are - an all male band who grew up there, an all female band who plan on using the publicity for their own advantage, and two spies from an industrial meat factory who were sent in order to find out what "secret formula" caused that many pigs to be born.With this kind of a ridiculous plot the film takes an extremely lazy route and gives each of it's characters only one clichéd characteristic as an identifier. You have your old fools (Slim Summerville), Cynical gals (Iris Adrian), feisty elderly ladies (Maude Eburne), dashing young men (Bruce Bennett), a somewhat well known musical sensation of the time appearing as themselves (Jimmy Wakely), and it just goes on. Summerville is enjoyable especially while bantering with tenacious Eburne though to a certain extant as his mumbling southerner Walter Brennan-esque routine gets stale real quick. Adrian never got another main starring role which was lucky since her brassiness here is spread so thin it's pretty tiring after a while, Bennett's nothing special but watchable. Wakley should not have been present at all the action stops dead as soon as there's a musical number and despite them being pleasant to one's ear they're basically noting more than just filler.At seventy minutes long this tiny and hidden for a good reason picture does provide some entertainment when it doesn't mainly and heavily rely on poor attempts at screwball comedy-like humor.

I'm From Arkansas is what is is, a lowbudget "B" ("C", really) comedy-musical clearly made for rural southern audiences and likely not seen that much outside of that region. Hillbilly bed-and-board owner Maude Eburne's prized pig manages to knock out eighteen young-uns in one pregnancy that manages to become novelty news across the country (read the headlines, one is a good joke in reference to the smash comedy The Miracle of Morgan Creek, released earlier that year). A gregarious manager of a small-time singing act decides to bring the girls down to Arkansas on the presumption they can somehow get tied into the spotlight. Brassy Iris Adrian is the most cynical of the gals and when she mistakes Bruce Bennett (a major radio bandleader back in his hometown for a vacation) for a local rube, he decides to milk it and play the hick while romancing her.Slim Summerville starred or was featured in scores of rural comedies for over a decade when this film was released, his earlier ones were for the major studios and had bigger budgets. Near the end of his career (he passed away in 1946), he is top-billed but has less screen time than either Bennett (surprisingly billed fourth when he was only a few years before considered possible major star material) or the always enjoyable Ms. Adrian, in the main lead, and the only truly starring role I can recall seeing her in (her specialty was snappy costarring small parts, even bits). Maude Eburne is a delight as always as "Ma" (one surprise later plot turn is Summerville's ardent pursuit of Eburne in marriage, he's always on her property so probably the major viewers presumed they were a long-married couple). Country music great Jimmy Wakely has a few nice numbers (including the legendary hit "You are My Sunshine" made famous by another Jimmy, Jimmie Davis), 50's pop star Mary Ford is in Wakely's girl group, and country star Merle Travis can be spotted in Bennett's band. Not a great comedy by any means, but a pleasant time killer.

A lot of familiar players try very hard to make this PRC film somewhat entertaining and it does succeed when it comes to the country musical acts. But the cheapness of a typical PRC film make I'm From Arkansas barely passable entertainment even in the areas it was marketed to in red state America.I'm From Arkansas probably never saw a New York opening, these kinds of films went right into general release in the south and west where they made money. I remember back when I was in the Army Reserves and stationed in such places as Fort Campbell, Kentucky or Fort Stewart, Georgia I saw films that I would never see at any neighborhood theater in Brooklyn. No doubt it was the same in the Forties.It's not quite The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek, but they've had a miracle of sorts in Pitchfork, Arkansas. Maude Eburne's sow Esmeralda gave birth to a little of 18 piglets. That passes for news and you'd have thought the Dionnes had another set of quintuplets when it goes out over the air.An all girl orchestra headed by Iris Adrian and managed by Clif Nazarro decides to take advantage of the publicity and they head for Pitchfork. But so does Bruce Bennett's country band and they have a slight advantage as Bennett is from Pitchfork.The villain of the piece is hog butcher John Hamilton who sends two of his men to buy that property figuring that there's some kind of hog aphrodisiac there to make Esmeralda so fertile. There is also a mineral spring that could be beneficial to humans as well. Those city slickers don't know what they're up against when Bennett and Adrian join forces to protect Maude Eburne and her kin.They even have El Brendel in the cast. Yumpin' Yiminy how did he get to Arkansas.Some country music acts of the day are on the bill here. Jimmy Wakely sings pretty and Carolina Cotton yodels as good as Roy Rogers.Still it's a very cheap PRC film and true enough it does stereotype rural folks horribly. Of course not as bad as Deliverance.

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.