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Five Little Peppers And How They Grew
The first of four films in the "Five Little Peppers" series, based on Margaret Sinclair's popular book, about a widowed mother and her five children. In this one the family inherits co-ownership in a copper mine.
Release : | 1939 |
Rating : | 6.6 |
Studio : | Columbia Pictures, |
Crew : | Art Direction, Director of Photography, |
Cast : | Dorothy Peterson Edith Fellows Tommy Bond Clarence Kolb Ronald Sinclair |
Genre : | Drama Comedy Family |
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Reviews
Sick Product of a Sick System
Pretty Good
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
Having been on an Our Gang kick again, I found out that YouTube has a series of Five Little Peppers movies that featured Tommy Bond and Edith Fellows-who had previously appeared in a couple of the Little Rascals shorts: Birthday Blues and Mush and Milk which Bond also was in. It's Fellows who's the main star here as the oldest of the siblings who takes care of the house when the widowed mom is off at work. Bond is far from his bully Butch character in OG that he still occasionally portrayed during this period which is refreshing to see. While this was mainly a drama, there are some humorous touches reminiscent of The Little Rascals like when Edith and Tommy are riding in a makeshift boat or when Tommy and a little brother are comparing which one has the bigger measles! I don't want to reveal any more, just that I very much enjoyed Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and looking forward to the rest of the series entries...
A very minor comedy for the kiddies' market, distinguished only by the unbilled appearance of Bruce Bennett as Kolb's chauffeur. Henry Freulich's pleasing photography shows far more skill than Charles Barton's totally routine direction. No less than five people contribute to the writing credits and one would think that with all this talent paving the way, the end result would be a script that would have been way, way more interesting. Instead, as other reviewers have commented, the plot is obviously stacked and lacks all spontaneity. All told, I'd give this movie an extremely generous four marks out of ten and I have written about it here solely because the sequels are so much more entertaining.
I remember reading the novel as a child and becoming thoroughly entranced by it. Over the years I remembered it fondly; in the Nineties, when similar-themed films like "The Secret Garden", "A Little Princess", and "Little Women" were released, I thought a film version of this book would fit in nicely. I was unaware that a film version had already been produced. When I saw it listed on TCM a couple of weeks ago, I made a point of getting up early and watching it. I was first shocked to see --- gasp --- a car. Modern clothes (by 30s standards)! Although the film was certainly watchable and had its charm, it was clearly not the book I remembered. Someday someone will film the novel accurately.
This family has no father. It is the mother raising the 5 children. You must be thinking of another movie. The father of these children died before the movie even starts. This is a beautiful movie that even my 11 year old son loved. He sat and laughed and laughed as he watched it. While some might see it as simplistic and unrealistic in this day and age, I was glad to see a movie that showed basic family values and was enjoyable for my children to watch. It also showed basic moral values and how they impact others. It became a series of movies and was followed up with Five Little Peppers in Trouble and Five Little peppers Out West.