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Gas
House Kids In Hollywood "Gas House Kids In Hollywood" and images © American Standard Motion Picture Classics  Tommy Bond and Alfalfa get a little tied up in "Gas House Kids In Hollywood". Four Gas House Kids are driving all the way from New York to Hollywood to meet their hero, the movie detective Lance Carter. They are driving in a dilapidated jalopy that they call "The Hollywood Limited". On the car they have painted "Hollywood or Bust" and "Lance Carter Fan Club No. 32" (the particular chapter to which they belong.) In the backseat of the car sits Alfalfa ("Alfie") and Tommy Bond ("Champ"). Alfalfa is singing a horrendously off-key version of "Old Kentucky Home", whose lyrics have been adapted to match the Gas House Kids' New York state of mind. Tommy and the two other Gas Housers do the requisite amount of wincing and squirming until Alfalfa's singing performance has concluded. His singing style seems to presage that which Jean Stapleton will employ some 24 years later during the opening credits of "All In the Family". 
  Above: Alfalfa serenades his pals with a special version of "My Old Kentucky Home". "The Hollywood Limited" blows a tire, and while the Gas House Kids are making the repairs, they hear on their radio a reporter tell of a mad professor, named Gately Crawford, who is reputed to be using his dead friend (Joseph) in scientific experiments. Sure enough, when they resume driving, the Gas House Kids unknowingly pick up Professor Crawford, whose car has, co-incidentally, also broken down on the same road. They agree to tote along a large box the professor has, which, they will find out later, contains the body of his deceased friend. 
Alfalfa listens to the radio while changing a tire. In gratitude, the Professor lets the Gas House Kids stay at his large house while they are in Hollywood trying to see Lance Carter. Immediately upon reaching the house, the Professor reveals his identity and the contents of the box. At first, the Kids want to flee, but they soon realize that the professor really isn't evil, just a little eccentric and goofy. The fact that the professor's shapely daughter also lives in the house—and regularly brings her equally comely girlfriends over for tennis—clinches their decision to stay. The professor's scientific experiments involve trying to pick up long-lost sound waves from the voices of such historical figures as George Washington, Napoleon, and Alexander the Great. 
 Left: Alfalfa and Tommy "Butch" Bond enjoy the trip west. Right: Alfalfa reacts after overhearing the legend of the dead prospector. Click both to enlarge. While he is bringing the Kids' luggage in from the car, Alfalfa overhears the professor and his daughter discussing the history of the house, into which they have recently moved: it was owned long ago by a prospector, who left his fortune someplace in the house when he died. Legend has it that the prospector's ghost roams the house at night, moving the fortune from place to place to confuse any would-be treasure hunters. That night, the professor throws a pool party during which Alfalfa falls in the water. Tommy Bond and another Gas House Kid ("Scat") try to rescue him, and each come up holding a body. Tommy yells out to Scat, "Either I got somebody else, or Alfie's got two heads!" The body that Tommy has plucked is really the deceased real estate agent who sold the house to the professor. Why is the real estate man dead? It turns out that he knew of the existence of a map which led to the treasure, and was just about to inform the professor of the riches hidden within. Then some gangsters somehow got wind of the whole scheme and bumped the realty agent off so they could collect the fortune for themselves. When Alfalfa is rescued from the pool, he and Tommy Bond have the following exchange: Tommy: Gee, imagine grabbin' a dead guy right by the hair! Alfalfa: Well, it coulda been worse. Tommy: Yeah... Alfalfa: Suppose the dead guy got you by the hair? 
 Alfalfa and Tommy tell the bumbling detective their version of the dead body discovery. The situation is further complicated when we learn that Lance Carter, the Kids' hero, is really a debt-riddled compulsive gambler who has gotten mixed up with the gangsters. The balance of the movie is chock-full of searches in dark basements, trick walls, skeletons, etc. The Gas House Kids help the incompetent police solve the caper and everybody is happy by film's end, save, of course, for the gangsters, as well as a cranky parrot who provides some (allegedly) comic relief throughout. "Gas House Kids In Hollywood" is the third of three "Gas House" films in which Alfalfa appeared, two of them with Tommy "Butch" Bond, who, despite playing Alfalfa's nemesis in "The Little Rascals", was really Alfalfa's good friend off-camera. Unfortunately for Alfalfa and Tommy, "Hollywood" contains some profoundly sophomoric sequences, many of which are built around the fundamental incompetence of the police and detectives assigned to the case of the dead realty agent. In one scene, the lead detective has ordered the residents of Professor Crawford's house to lock themselves in their rooms for the night. One room contains the professor's daughter and her gaggle of girlfriends. The detective is, at this point, suspicious of everybody, and is making his rounds to ensure that all are in their rooms as ordered. He knocks on the door of the girls' room. Detective: Is everybody in there? Answer from inside: Yes, we're all here. Detective: Okay, just checking. The highlight of the film is the interplay between Alfalfa and Tommy. Their dialogue is certainly corny at times, but is at least spirited and energetic. One such exchange takes place when they are in the basement trying to locate a false wall by rapping on the plaster for hollow spots. Tommy [to Alfalfa]: Come on, start tapping. Alfalfa: Okay, but my heart won't be in it! Alfalfa then starts doing a soft-shoe tap dance until Tommy yells, "No no, ya' sap, on the walls!" 
 Trapped in "the crummy underneath". Later, while in the dark, creepy basement, Alfalfa and Tommy's voices are transmitted up to the professor's lab by means of a kind of intercom. The professor thinks he is hearing the voices of historical figures and speaks into the intercom: Professor: What's happening in the great beyond? Tommy: I don't know know what's happenin' in the great beyond, but Alfie and I are locked up in the crummy underneath! 
There is one other notable moment which recalls a scene from Alfalfa and Tommy's Little Rascals days. They get entangled with a skeleton, and Tommy winds up twisting Alfalfa's foot, thinking it belongs to the skeleton—similar to "Came the Brawn" when Alfalfa was twisting his own foot, thinking it belonged to the Masked Marvel (Butch). It is a mystery why some enterprising producer of the era didn't try to tap into the vast potential of further Alfalfa/Tommy Bond pairings in subsequent films, especially ones with better dialogue, story, etc. With the proper script and a director more concerned with quality, there is no telling how far Alfalfa and Tommy could have gone as a comedy team, if both were so inclined (it's difficult to image why they wouldn't be). Among Alfalfa's grownup films that were available for screening at the time of this writing, "Gas House Kids In Hollywood" is the one that provides most screen time to Alfalfa and the most lines of dialogue he was given in a single film. Alfalfa struggles mightily to lift his performance above the quality of the material he was given in terms of script and story, both of which are between mediocre and abysmal. "Gas House Kids In Hollywood" is also the non-Rascals film in which Alfalfa gets the best chance to engage in physical comedy, which he does to pretty good effect. In one hilarious sequence, the Gas House Kids are trying to get into a movie studio to meet Lance Carter. Unable to get past security, they scale a wall to get in through the back entrance. The other three Kids use a hapless Alfalfa as a "boost" over the high wall, and in the process he has several shoes ground into his face, his pals totally oblivious to his distress. 
 Alfalfa's face is used as a stepstool. Ouch!! Click to enlarge. Finally, we get a vintage Alfalfan blown line during the Kids' initial meeting with Lance Carter. Alfalfa handles introductions, and proudly says that they are "Lance Carter Fan Club No. 22!" Throughout the film, we are told—and see—that the Kids belong to Lance Carter Fan Club No. 32. 
The Gas House Kids finally meet Lance Carter. Milton Parsons, who played the ditzy Professor Gately Crawford, appeared briefly in two MGM-era Little Rascals episodes, "Alfalfa's Double" and "Dad For a Day".  Milton Parsons as Professor Gately Crawford.
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"Gas House Kids In Hollywood" and images © American Standard Motion Picture Classics Commentary © 4alfalfa.com |
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