 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
4alfalfa.com
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| Alfalfaddendum |
|
Reg'lar
Fellers  The opening scene of "Reg'lar Fellers" is a juvenile quiz show broadcast over the radio. Alfalfa is seen waiting calmly off to the side of the stage with several other children who are awaiting their turn at the microphone. In fact, Alfalfa is so calm that he almost dozes off, just barely staying awake long enough to be summoned front and center by the quiz show MC. 
Alfalfa (right) as Bump Hudson, struggling to stay awake. The MC asks Bump Hudson (Alfalfa's name in this one) if he knows anything about the topic of his question, which is music. "Well," Alfalfa replies modestly, "I sing once in a while". Alfalfa's challenge is to name the song played on the piano by the show's musical director. Alfalfa can't quite identify the name of the song, so the MC invites him to sing it, in the hopes his memory will be jogged. Alfalfa then launches into a torturous rendition of "The Last Rose of Summer", which is greeted with laughter by the studio audience. After he finishes singing, Alfalfa still can't recall the song's name (even though he just got done singing its lyrics. Hmmm...) 
As
it turns out, many of the other contestants and spectators of the
quiz show belong to a neighborhood club called the "Reg'lar
Fellers". Alfalfa seems so impressed by the acumen of one of
the Reg'lar Fellers, a boy named Jimmy, that he shows up the next
day to the Reg'lar Feller clubhouse to see what other cool stuff
they're up to. Alfalfa peers in through a dirty window. Puddinhead's amphibious tank does in fact sink on its maiden voyage, vindicating Alfalfa's skepticism. Thereafter, he is appointed the new chief inventor of the Reg'lar Fellers, replacing the disgraced Puddinhead. Because of a failed amphibious tank, Alfalfa has become a full member of the Reg'lar Fellers. The balance of the movie is a little more heavy going, due to a muddled melodrama about a grouchy socialite named Mrs. Carter who hates children and isn't crazy about her daughter-in-law either. There is also a baby in the mix; the infant is reported missing about midway through the film, creating more complications. And there is a character named Larry Carter, Mrs. Carter's son, who apparently has been wrongly imprisoned in New York City. Soon we see the obligatory New York confidence men straight out of Central Casting, wearing fedoras and pencil-thin mustache and threatening Mrs. Carter and her loyal housekeeper, until the Reg'lar Fellers intervene and save the day. The climax of the movie includes the shopworn convention of a group of kids banding together to beat the bad guys (with the help of some strategic booby traps, courtesy of newly-appointed chief inventor Alfalfa.) By film's end, all is well. Alfalfa is a fully-accepted member of the Reg'lar Fellers, Mrs. Carter has seen the error of her hateful ways, Larry Carter is coming home from prison, and the bad guys have been trounced. Mrs. Carter even agrees to outfit her barn into a handsomely-apportioned workshop where Alfalfa and the rest of the Fellers can work on their inventions and other related projects. "Reg'lar
Fellers" was the first film in which Alfalfa appeared following
his departure from the Little Rascals. It is really something to
see him in this picture, playing a totally different kind of character
than we are used to. He desperately wants to join the Reg'lar Fellers
(why, we don't know; none of them seem particularly pleasant), and
it is poignant to see him practically begging to be accepted as
a member. When he first shows up at the Fellers' basement headquarters,
Pinhead (played by the grating Billy Lee) accuses him of only showing
up to get some birthday cake that is being served. Then, Alfalfa is treated like a mule, carrying lumber and other supplies into the basement so the arrogant Puddinhead can work on his doomed amphibious tank. Trying to negotiate the bulkhead steps while balancing some two by fours on his shoulders, he takes a header into the basement to the uproarious laughter of all the Reg'lar Fellers, none of whom make any effort to help him. And at the day of the launching, he repeats his doubts to Puddinhead about the tank's chances of floating, and he is squirted directly in the face with a can of oil by Puddinhead, again to the delight of the assembled onlookers.
Alfalfa's observation that he "has to start at the bottom of the ladder" is an apt statement of how things stood after his departure from the Little Rascals. Curiously, as with many of Alfalfa's adolescent roles, he seems much younger than he does during the tail end of his Rascals career. One almost expects to see an opening credit which reads something like "...and introducing Carl Switzer as 'Bump' ".
There
are some interesting casting twists in "Reg'lar Fellers".
Roscoe Ates, better known for his role in Tod Browning's "Freaks",
appears as Emory McQuade, a hardware store proprietor who acts as
a kind of mentor to Alfalfa and the Fellers. And none other than
Dick van Patten is credited in some sources (including Leonard Maltin's
annual "Movies on TV" guide) as starring in "Reg'lar
Fellers" (along with Joyce van Patten!) We were not able to
spot either one, although they both admittedly would have looked
younger than we're accustomed to seeing them. One
of the Reg'lar Fellers (we're not even sure what his name is, although
he has a fairly important role), looks like a dead ringer for Henry
"Spike" Lee, who played the no-nonsense (until Cousin
Amelia shows up) Sergeant-at-Arms of the He-Man Woman Haters Club,
but there is no official credit listed for Spike. Finally, another
"Lee", Billy, is Pinhead (fans of the film "Freaks",
in which Ates also appeared, will appreciate that bit of irony).
Lee, about six years earlier, played the tiny tap-dancing boy in
"Mike Fright", the one dressed in a sailor suit who came
out at the tail end of "Little Grass Shack". Early on
in "Reg'lar Fellers", he is, along with Puddinhead, Alfalfa's
chief antagonizer, sarcastically answering our hero's innocent questions
and accusing him of all sorts of ulterior motives for wanting to
join the Fellers. Lee also appeared in "Too Many Parents",
a 1935 film concerning a boys military academy; Alfalfa had a small
role in this picture as "Cactus Bill", who, along with
his brother Harold Switzer, performed a version of "White Gardenia"
during a musical program being put on by the students at the academy.
In "Fellers", Lee is the leader and drummer of the Reg'lar
Fellers band. It is Lee who closes the film, singing a celebratory
song commemorating the opening of their new barn workshop, donated
by the reformed Mrs. Carter. "Hurrah for fun!" is the
closing line of Lee's song, and for the film as well. "Reg'lar
Fellers" was based on a comic strip of the same name. The plan
was for it to be developed into a recurring film series, but things
never panned out; this was to be the only installment.
|
| Commentary © 4alfalfa.com |
|
Home • Episode
Commentary • An
Alfalfa Appreciation
|
