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Cause
for Alarm!
Genre: Drama
Released: 1951
Directed by: Tay
Garnett
Starring:
Loretta Young, Barry Sullivan
Alfalfa portrays: A
neighborhood grease monkey who tells a frantic Loretta Young which
way the postman went.
Alfalfa's screen time: 27
seconds
Lines
of dialogue spoken by Alfalfa:
4
"Cause
For Alarm" and images © Hollywood Select Video
Alfalfa
and "Tex" discuss their next move from an auto
repair standpoint. Click image to enlarge.
The publicity tagline for "Cause for
Alarm" was "This Girl Is In Trouble!" And they're
right, if they're in fact referring to Loretta Young, because this
is a pretty lousy movie. Billed as film noir, it's actually an odd,
murky film that's something like a cross between "Gaslight"
and "Carnival of Lost Souls".
Poor Loretta is trying to nurse her paranoid heart-patient husband
back to health. The husband is convinced that Loretta and the family
doctor are having an affair. The husband mails a letter to the authorities
explaining that Loretta and the doctor are plotting to kill him.
Loretta unknowingly hands off the letter to the friendly neighborhood
mailman. When she finds out later that morning what the letter was
about, she starts a frantic search to find the whereabouts of the
mailman. It is then that Alfalfa comes
into the picture. He and his aptly-named friend Tex are fixing a
car in a driveway as Loretta runs up to them.
Loretta
approaches...(click image to enlarge).
Alfalfa: What's that for, Tex?
[referring to an unidentified car part that his buddy is carrying
towards the car]
Tex: Who knows? The heep needs everything we can put in it.
Alfalfa: But what'll it do?
Tex: Who cares?
Loretta [running up to the pair]: Pardon me...can
you tell me, did the postman go by here yet?
Alfalfa: The postman?
Loretta: Yes.
Tex
tells her that he did, and he went "thataway".
Alfalfa [trying
to expand on Tex's answer]:
Yeah, that way towards Merritt Street...you know.
Loretta: Yeah, I know. [she runs off]
Tex
tells Loretta that the mailman went "thataway".
Click image to enlarge.
All's well that ends well after Loretta finds
the postman, the letter is retrieved, the paranoid husband finally
dies, and Loretta avoids a nervous breakdown.
Tex is played by Robert Easton, who would go on to have a long career
behind the camera as a dialect and accent coach for such notable
films as "Good Will Hunting" and "Scarface"
(the Al Pacino one). He also appeared in several films, and TV shows
such as "Get Smart", "Kolchak", and "The
Beverly Hillbillies".
Not much of import can be said of Alfalfa's lightning-fast appearance
here. This is the type of role his critics have in mind when they
claim he couldn't find work as an adult—although many an actor
has made a living on the kind of small role Alfalfa had in "Cause
For Alarm".
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