Five Little Peppers at Home (1940)

Too much of everything

Brilliant and touching

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

In my review of the previous movie in the series, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, I concentrated so much on mentioning that both Edith Fellows and Tommy Bond were in Our Gang shorts beforehand that I didn't mention the plot of that one. Well, here this one picks up where the last one left off as the Pepper family had moved into rich man King's home after King agreed to be Polly Pepper's partner in the copper mine they both owned having previously lived in a more modest house. So it was that all that I just mentioned happened resulted in bankruptcy for King because no copper had been found in that mine during all that time. I'll stop there and just say there's some funny situations-like that of the youngest daughter overfilling a bathtub-and more dramatic ones-like a mine cave-in-that keep the movie quite entertaining during the little more than an hour the movie runs. So that's a recommendation for Five Little Peppers at Home for anyone who liked the first one enough.

This sequel builds a fair amount of excitement in its cave-in climax and we like the tracking shots with which it concludes. But otherwise, this is a pretty dull affair with young Edith Fellows playing the little mother and Dorothy Ann Sees rattling off the carefully prepared prattle. Dorothy Peterson has only a minor role in this one, most of the action centering on Clarence Kolb's accept-reverses-of-fortune- with-a-smile grandpa King and Ronald Sinclair's just-happens-to-know- all-about-copper-mining butler. The film would be improved if the few scenes with the boys were completely eliminated. They add nothing to the action and the boys themselves are not particularly likable. By the humble standards of a Columbia "B" picture, production values are fair.

Five Little Peppers at Home (1940)** (out of 4) Decent second film in the Columbia series picks up shortly after the previous film. This time out the Peppers and the Kings are living together but soon its discovered that the King family is on the verge of bankruptcy and might have to sell the copper mine. FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AT HOME isn't nearly as cute and charming as the first film but I think those who enjoyed the original should at least be somewhat entertained by this sequel. I really liked the fact that this film pretty much picks up right after the original and it was also very good that the majority of the cast came back. This includes Edith Fellows playing the main Peppers girl and Clarence Kolb who plays the grandfather King. Both of them offer up good performances and help keep the film moving at a nice pace. The supporting players are also good in their roles, although I must admit that Dorothy Ann Seese's character, the youngest kid, is being forced to be too cute and it has a few annoying spots. The biggest problem with this sequel is simply that a lot of the charm is now missing and its been replaced with a pretty bland story about going broke. As you'd expect, there's a lot of talk about the values of being poor but I'm not sure how many people would agree with this. Still, this is a fairly simple movie and fans of the first will still want to check it out.

The Pepper family has five children. The oldest Polly is very motherly and takes care of the children when the mother is working or tending to other matters, which is most of the time. The youngest a girl will keep you smiling because of her innocent chatter. The boys are just trouble!) The family lives with an old man "Gramp King" and his orphaned grandson in their overly cramped home which they are forced to return to after living in the King home because of bankruptcy. The two small boys and the butler share a bed and Polly and Phronsie share a bed. The mother goes away to work and so Polly is in charge. This is a true representation of a large family!