A pair of oil company executives (Andrew Toombes, George Chandler) are
passing through Pine Ridge and relieve themselves of boredom by playing some
practical jokes on the town’s inhabitants—including convincing Lum & Abner
(Chester Lauck, Norris Goff) that there’s oil underneath the Jot ‘Em Down
Store. The boys decide to start their own oil exploration company, and persuade
the townsfolk to invest by mortgaging their properties—but the boom turns out
to be a bust, so Messrs. Edwards and Peabody are forced to journey to Chicago
to try and sell the company to the original jokers. Their associate (Jack Rice)
buys them out for a princely sum, allowing them to redeem themselves in the
eyes of their Pine Ridge neighbors once again.
I know this plot sounds similar to that of Two Weeks to Live
(1943), and it is—but Goin’ to Town (1944) is a much superior film. It
benefits from swift, no-nonsense direction from veteran comedy director Leslie
Goodwins; Goodwins’ resume includes many of the Mexican Spitfire features (with
Lupe Velez) and the comedy shorts of Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol to boot. He
was a pretty experienced B-movie comedy director, and Goin’ to Town is
all the better for it. It eliminates the obviously phony and painfully unfunny
stunt work of Two Weeks to Live, and concentrates more on Pine Ridge and
its delightfully eccentric characters. There are more characters from the radio
program in this movie than in any other: Cedric Weehunt, Squire Skimp,
Grandpappy Spears and Sister Simpson are all showcased here—with character Grady
Sutton making his second appearance as Cedric (he was previously seen in The Bashful Bachelor)
and Danny Duncan in his second of three appearances as Grandpap.
Dick Elliott, by the way, makes a sensational Squire Skimp (the
role was previously played by Oscar O’Shea in Bachelor and Two Weeks);
Elliott was a veteran character actor who just might possibly have appeared in
every single film produced in the 30s and 40s (yes, I am exaggerating
here) but he’s best remembered as the cantankerous old fart who tries to give
James Stewart advice on how to romance Donna Reed in It’s a Wonderful Life
(1946). (Elliott would reprise his Skimp role in Partners in Time as
well.) L&A fans are, of course, well aware that these denizens of Pine
Ridge were played by Lauck (Cedric, Grandpap) and Goff (Squire) on the radio
show, so it’s great that they were able to find actors to flesh out these
characters—I suppose Chet and “Tuffy” could have played them via a split
screen, but the low-budget nature of these movies no doubt put the kibosh on
that plan.
Other performers in this film include a young Barbara Hale (best
remembered as Della Street on TV’s Perry Mason), Florence Lake (“wife”
to Edgar Kennedy in many of his RKO comedy shorts, which is probably why
Goodwins cast her in this movie), and Herbert Rawlinson. Nils T. Granlund
(N.T.G. to his friends) and his bevy of beautiful babes are also on hand to
entertain in a memorable nightclub sequence (when the maitre’d asks Lum &
Abner if they have a reservation or a table, Abner asks his partner, “Was we
supposed to bring our own table?”) With a funny script written by
Charles R. Marion (who would go on to pen many of the Leo Gorcey/Huntz Hall
Bowery Boys efforts) and Charles E. Roberts (responsible for many of RKO’s
comedy two-reelers), Goin’ to Town is definitely my favorite of the Lum
& Abner feature films—until my copy of Partners in Time arrives in
the post, that is.
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