Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

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...

You don't watch a film like this for the plot. It projects a world of morality, common decency and a naïve but infectious positivity in "defiance" of the cynical desire for narratives that almost glorify endless tragedy and suffering. There are plenty of classics that handle tragedy masterfully well but every story doesn't have to be about tragedy. "Feel good" narratives exist, and I'd rather see them in this form than 99% of the drivel we get today.

The craft of fiction is a matter of physically stacking the cards. The art of fiction is doing so in a manner that no one notices that the cards have been stacked. The problem with this movie is that it is easy to see just how the writers went about working the deck. It lacks all spontaneity.

There is a nice gauzy late-depression (1939) feel to it. "Grapes of Wrath" it isn't. There's a poor family of five children and a mother (no father even though one reviewer remembered one) who works hard to keep it all together. The stove smokes in their humble but clean kitchen. There's little food in the pantry. Not far away lives a hideously wealthy old man with his grandson. By contrivance, they are put together, and after a series of near disasters (I never believed there was real jeopardy), things are put aright in a warm and fuzzy way. You sort of knew that this wasn't going to be a tragedy when you saw all those cute kids.

The acting is of the present day sitcom variety, i.e. not very good, litotes for bad. But there is one exception. The little girl, youngest of the children, is marvelous. Too often very young actors sing-song their recited lines. Not so here. What ever became of her? This is a rather nice movie to watch when you're not feeling well. It passes the time while not requiring a thing from you.

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.

Five LIttle Peppers and How They Grew (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

As this film opened it became clear within minutes that this here was Columbia's answer to the Andy Hardy series from MGM. The story focuses on a widowed mother and her five children who are growing up poor. It turns out that the dead husband had control of a mine, which is now worth a lot of money but the family doesn't realize it. Soon a rich man (Clarence Kolb) who knows the value wants to steal it from them but he begins to have a change of heart after getting to know the children. FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW tries so painfully hard to be sweet and cute that at times you can't help but roll your eyes. However, just like the bitter old man in the movie, the kids and story eventually win you over and in the end this here really turned out to be a cute little movie. Yes, the story is predictable and there's some questionable acting and story lines but there's still no question that this movie was made to be sweet and not win awards. I was really surprised at how much I began to like this family and want to see them overcome all the odds that were stacked up against them. The oldest daughter Polly (Edith Fellows) was certainly a charmer and manages to really bring you into this family. I thought the other children were cute enough as well but I also really enjoyed the performance of Kolb and especially how he changed throughout the film. At just 58-minutes the film runs by super fast and I think fans of these family "B" movies should enjoy it.