Kelly the Second

Genre: Comedy
Released: 1935
Director: Gus Meins
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Charley Chase, Gain"Big Boy" Williams
Alfalfa portrays: A small boy who seeks help from druggist Charley Chase after swallowing twenty-five cents.
Alfalfa's screen time: 1:15
Lines of dialogue spoken by Alfalfa: 5

A frantic Alfalfa tells Doc (Charley Chase) that he
just swallowed twenty-five cents (two dimes and a
buffalo nickel.) Click to enlarge.

Alfalfa: Doc, doc!!...Ring the hospital, I'm sick!
Chase: Hospital, hospital?...now just wait a minute, my boy, cool off. What seems to be the matter?
Alfalfa: I swallowed twenty-five cents!
Chase [calmly mixing up an elixir]: Now tell me, when did you swallow this quarter?
Alfalfa: It wasn't a quarter, it was two dimes and a buffalo nickel!
Chase: Oh...[he puts in two more spoons of powder into the potion] Two dimes...[puts in a third spoon]...buffalo nickel. Now drink this right down and you'll be alright. [Before he gives the drink to Alfalfa, he pulls back] Just a minute, that's fifteen cents.
Alfalfa [nervously pats himself as if to check for money]: How 'bout bringin' it in this afternoon?
Chase [re-opens the jar of powder and mixes in another spoonful, this one heaping]: How about bringing it in this morning?


Click to enlarge.

Chase hands the drink over the counter to Alfalfa, who bolts it down while Chase nervously tries to shoo him away, telling Alfalfa to "run along quickly".

Alfalfa grimaces severely after finishing the presumably distasteful drink, then wheels and sprints out of the store. He bangs into a pedestrian and keeps on running down the street and then disappears into the crowd...

Alfalfa is absolutely delightful as the ragamuffin with a penchant for swallowing coins in this Hal Roach/Charlie Chase feature. We estimate that the impish Alfalfa must have been cast in this role right after his appearance in his Little Rascals debut "Beginner's Luck". Besides the actual performances of Chase and Alfalfa, what makes this vignette even more amusing is the realization that the mischievous tyke swallowed not one coin—which would have been bad enough—but three.

In addition to "Kelly the Second" being directed by Gus Meins, there are several Rascals veterans seen in this film. James C. Morton plays a city policeman, in a role similar to the one he would play in "The Lucky Corner". May Wallace portrays Patsy Kelly's motherly landlady, and we also see a very brief glimpse of Sid Kibrick as a newspaper boy in a "sights of the city" montage which follows the opening credits.

A youthful Pert Kelton is also seen later on as a gangster's moll. Kelton was the original "Alice Kramden" in an early incarnation of "The Honeymooners" sketch on the Jackie Gleason Show.

Later, when Kelly trains her fighter, Cecil Callahan, we see a couple of gags which would be re-cycled two years later in "Glove Taps". First, Kelly is seen calmly examining a boxing "how to" manual while Callahan is toiling away in a sparring session—just as Spanky does while Alfalfa works out in "Taps". Then we see Cecil in a "shadow boxing" visual pun, almost identical to the gag involving Alfalfa in "Glove Taps".

"Kelly the Second" was the first of three appearances a young Alfalfa would make in a Charley Chase film, the others being "Southern Exposure" and "Life Hesitates at 40".

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