Too Many Parents

Genre: Drama/Comedy
Released: 1936
Directed by: Robert McGowan
Starring: Frances Farmer, Lester Matthews, George Ernest, Henry Travers, Billy Lee
Alfalfa portrays: Cactus Bill, who performs "Little White Gardenia" at a spirited military academy musical revue
Alfalfa's screen time: 2:16
Lines of dialogue spoken by Alfalfa: None (singing performance)

Alfalfa as "Texas Bill" and his ever-dutiful brother Harold
perform "Little White Gardenia"

There are several familiar faces to be found in this little-known comedy/drama, directed by long-time Little Rascals director Robert F. McGowan. The film is set at a boys' military academy in which we see a series of episodic story lines play out involving several of the boys who have been sent to the academy for different reasons by their parents. By film's end, the story focuses on one of the boys, Phillip Stewart, who is desperate to renew his relationship with his big-city businessman father.

Frances Farmer, in her first film role, appears as Sally Colman, daughter of the academy's colonel. Farmer's story was made famous in the 1982 film "Frances" in which Jessica Lange portrayed the beautiful star who was unjustly institutionalized and, according to her, was raped by orderlies, gnawed on by rats, poisoned by tainted food, chained in padded cells, strapped in straitjackets, and nearly drowned in ice baths. All this some seventy years prior to "Fear Factor".

Above left: Frances Farmer in her first film appearance.
Right: Henry Travers, later to portray guardian angel
Clarence Oddbody in "It's a Wonderful Life".

Henry Travers plays Wilkins, the kindly but slightly absent-minded custodian who dispenses advice to the academy students. Ten years after "Too Many Parents", Travers would portray Clarence Oddbody, Jimmy Stewart's guardian angel, in the immortal Frank Capra classic "It's a Wonderful Life", in which a nineteen-year-old Alfalfa had his most well-known supporting role.

In addition to Farmer and Travers, Sherwood Bailey plays Clarence Talbot Jr. Bailey appeared in a handful of Little Rascals episodes, most notably "Dogs Is Dogs", where as bratty tattletale Sherwood he made poor Wheezer's life miserable. Also on hand is Billy Lee, who had a memorable turn in "Mike Fright" as the cream pie-deserving tap-dancing kid in the sailor suit, and also appeared as Pinhead in 1940 post-Alfalfa film "Reg'lar Fellers".

Sherwood Bailey and Billy Lee.

Jack Norton (below) plays against type as a humorless, straight-laced academy commandant. Norton played a drunk or a vagrant in over a third of his 172 credited film appearances, including 1932 Little Rascals episode "Choo-Choo". Norton also appeared in 1938's "The Awful Tooth" as the dentist to whom Alfalfa seeks a tooth extraction as a means of generating cash for the purchase of a new baseball glove.

Alfalfa and his brother Harold appear about two-thirds through the film, providing some musical entertainment during a vaudeville-style musical revue the military academy students put on for their parents. Presumably, Alfalfa and Harold are also enrolled in the academy, but this musical sequence is the only one in which they are seen. As "Cactus Bill", a missing-toothed Alfalfa and Harold provide a halting version of a song called "Little White Gardenia":

For I bring a little white gardenia
As refreshing as a day in May.
You may wear it if you care
Or toss it away.
If you look into this white gardenia
There's a missive that I dare not say.
That I left this little white gardenia
Some day...
Who knows, tomorrow we may be together
Or so far apart
Take this token of my love
Cherish it and keep it close to your heart
Just remember if we meet again, dear
At the death or by fate's design
If you wear a little white gardenia
I'll know you are near.

It is an amusing but odd performance. Alfalfa seems genuinely confused during the song. His singing degenerates into a kind of recitation as he struggles to recall the correct lyrics. And even his brother Harold, who invariably knew every word of their singing performances, seems hesitant and a touch distracted. At one point, their performance trails off and almost stops completely. As is his wont, Harold sneaks several wary glances in the direction of his younger brother during the song.

Harold Switzer, accompanying
his brother with a guitar nearly
as big as he is.

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