Having been on an Our Gang kick again, I found out that YouTube has a series of Five Little Peppers movies that featured Tommy Bond and Edith Fellows-who had previously appeared in a couple of the Little Rascals shorts: Birthday Blues and Mush and Milk which Bond also was in. It's Fellows who's the main star here as the oldest of the siblings who takes care of the house when the widowed mom is off at work. Bond is far from his bully Butch character in OG that he still occasionally portrayed during this period which is refreshing to see. While this was mainly a drama, there are some humorous touches reminiscent of The Little Rascals like when Edith and Tommy are riding in a makeshift boat or when Tommy and a little brother are comparing which one has the bigger measles! I don't want to reveal any more, just that I very much enjoyed Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and looking forward to the rest of the series entries...
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rpniew31 December 2007I remember reading the novel as a child and becoming thoroughly entranced by it. Over the years I remembered it fondly; in the Nineties, when similar-themed films like "The Secret Garden", "A Little Princess", and "Little Women" were released, I thought a film version of this book would fit in nicely. I was unaware that a film version had already been produced. When I saw it listed on TCM a couple of weeks ago, I made a point of getting up early and watching it. I was first shocked to see --- gasp --- a car. Modern clothes (by 30s standards)! Although the film was certainly watchable and had its charm, it was clearly not the book I remembered. Someday someone will film the novel accurately.
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planktonrules23 December 2019Back in the 1930s, you'd hardly know that they were in the midst of the Depression when you watched movies. Hardly any seemed to acknowledge that the country's outlook was bleak and that so many were out of work....and films generally featured rich and happy folks. "Five Little Peppers and How They Grew" is unusual because it features a very poor family that struggles to make ends meet.
When the film begins, you learn that some rich industrialist if looking for the heirs of John Pepper, a mining engineer who owns 50% of a mine. The problem is they have no idea who the heirs are and the Pepper family is poor and completely oblivious to their good fortune.
Much of the film has to do with the Pepper children all working to make a cake for their mother's birthday. In the process of getting money and supplies for the cake, they meet a nice rich boy who is desperately lonely for friends. Naturally, the writers were trying to say to the audience that financial wealth is NOT the same as true wealth...such as the way the Peppers loved each other. Not surprisingly, the boy's family just happens to be the ones looking for the Pepper heirs. So what's next? See the film.
"Five Little Peppers" is a very nice film...sweet and the sort of thing some might think is a bit too schmaltzy. But its message was perfect for the Depression era and folks needed some hope. Overall, a nice little story that you can't help but enjoy...schmaltziness and all.
By the way, if you watch the film look for Tommy Bond playing one of the Pepper kids. In the Little Rascals films, he played Butch--the bully. Here, however, he's a nicer kid...and gave Bond a chance to do something different. -
mcsand814 December 2007This family has no father. It is the mother raising the 5 children. You must be thinking of another movie. The father of these children died before the movie even starts. This is a beautiful movie that even my 11 year old son loved. He sat and laughed and laughed as he watched it. While some might see it as simplistic and unrealistic in this day and age, I was glad to see a movie that showed basic family values and was enjoyable for my children to watch. It also showed basic moral values and how they impact others. It became a series of movies and was followed up with Five Little Peppers in Trouble and Five Little peppers Out West.
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negromanson29 March 2021You don't watch a film like this for the plot. It projects a world of morality, common decency and a naïve but infectious positivity in "defiance" of the cynical desire for narratives that almost glorify endless tragedy and suffering. There are plenty of classics that handle tragedy masterfully well but every story doesn't have to be about tragedy. "Feel good" narratives exist, and I'd rather see them in this form than 99% of the drivel we get today.
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lugonian22 October 2011FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW (Columbia, 1939), directed by Charles Barton, based on the book and characters created by Margaret Sidney, became another one the studio's own contribution in family oriental films. Cashing in on the popularity to the "Blondie" comedies that initially began in 1938 featuring Penny Singleton (Blondie), Arthur Lake (Dagwood) and Larry Simms (Baby Dumpling) as the Bumstead family, Columbia attempt on a new series was far different from Chic Young's comic strip characters. The Peppers appear to be more towards the range of families depicted from either Alice Hegan Rice's "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" or Kate Douglas Wiggins' "Mother Carey's Chickens." While those aforementioned titles developed into a motion picture but not a series, "The Five Little Peppers" did, but to a short-lived degree.
Before the Peppers are introduced, the initial opening, set in the office of J.H. King Investments, finds John H. King (Clarence Kolb), a business tycoon, hoping to acquire the additional 50 percent investment of a copper mine owned by John Pepper, a mining engineer who was killed in a cave in, leaving a wife and five children in a shanty town of Gusty Corners. The scene immediately shifts over to the Pepper family consisting of John's widow (Dorothy Peterson), and children, Polly (Edith Fellows), Ben (Charles Peck), Joey (Tommy Bond), Davie (Jimmy Leake) and little Phronsie (Dorothy Ann Seese) as they prepare themselves for another day. Mother's job working in a factory leaves Polly, the eldest, to care for the younger siblings. Hoping to acquire enough money to produce a birthday cake for their mother, Polly goes out to collect enough money owed her for the pressing of dresses for her neighbors. Unable to collect $1.50 from a Mrs. Peters, who happens to work for Mr. King, Polly heads over to the King estate where she encounters the tycoon's grandson, Jasper (Ronald Sinclair). Although not allowed to leave the grounds, Jasper, quite bored and lonely, spends his entire day in the Pepper household helping them with the making of a birthday cake. At home with grandfather, Jasper tells him how he's had more fun with the Peppers than being home under the watch of the servants. Learning of Jasper's association with the Peppers, King, along with Jasper, come to the Gusty Corners where he intends on closing a business deal with them. However, things change dramatically when the younger children are diagnosed with the measles, causing both King and Jasper to be quarantined under doctor's orders in the Pepper household. Due to exhausting work caring for her siblings, Polly collapses and becomes blind due to her illness. After the family is taken to the King mansion for rest and recovery, Polly begins to see things differently after overhearing King's discussion with his associates the reason why he's been so kind to them.
Reportedly not an accurate reflection to the original story from which it was based, screenwriters Nathanie Bucknall and Jefferson Parker have taken the Pepper family out of the horse and buggy era to contemporary depression-era setting, devising a story of their own while keeping the concept of the main characters intact.
For a movie consisting of children as its focal point, one would have expected this to be close to the situations found in the Hal Roach's comedy shorts of "Our Gang," where Tommy Bond (Joey Pepper) appeared a semi-regular as a bully named Butch. Rather than concentrating on the antics of kids in a straightforward comedy, THE FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS has developed more towards dramatics. Granted there's some humor deftly blended into the story, with one noteworthy scene as old man King struggles to get a good night's sleep while resting in the same bed with the two other tossing and turning Pepper boys.
Edith Fellows, Columbia's contract child star since 1935, has really matured to a bright young teenager by this time. Of the five little Peppers, the one who garners the most attention is the youngest, the blonde moppet, Phronsie (Dorothy Ann Seese). Her character comes as a reflection of the female equivalent to Baby Dumplin (Larry Simms)from in the "Blondie" film series. Her cutesy performance can be either unbearably annoying or totally delightful, depending how an any individual viewer might accept this.
Virtually forgotten in both film and book form by today's standards, and never distributed to home video or DVD, THE FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW finally surfaced on Turner Classic Movies in 2007. It's broadcast not only casts a reflection on old-fashioned family stories, but a rediscovery to both Margaret Sidney's created characters and Columbia's own Edith Fellows, whose strength and fine performance keeps this 58 minute programmer going. (** pepper shakers) -
Doylenf14 November 2007Very mild family comedy about the Pepper family, run by mother DOROTHY PETERSON, the father having died in the collapse of a copper mine in which he was part owner.
EDITH FELLOWS is the oldest member of the family including two girls and three boys. They befriend a wealthy rich boy, Jasper King (RONALD SINCLAIR) and the story is a series of misadventures with the poor family getting much needed help from their wealthier acquaintance.
What strikes me is how youthful RONALD SINCLAIR is in this film, as compared to one made just a few years later--DESPERATE JOURNEY with Errol Flynn. Sinclair had a grown-up role as a sergeant in that wartime film. He was an excellent child actor who reminds me somewhat of Freddie Bartholomew in appearance and acting.
Pretty bland stuff, with children actually having good manners and respectful of authority--1939 was a completely different era. The plot line contains nothing more serious than a case of the measles that quarantines everyone in the household, including the wealthy guests.
An easily forgotten programmer of a bygone era. -
Five LIttle Peppers and How They Grew (1939)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
As this film opened it became clear within minutes that this here was Columbia's answer to the Andy Hardy series from MGM. The story focuses on a widowed mother and her five children who are growing up poor. It turns out that the dead husband had control of a mine, which is now worth a lot of money but the family doesn't realize it. Soon a rich man (Clarence Kolb) who knows the value wants to steal it from them but he begins to have a change of heart after getting to know the children. FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW tries so painfully hard to be sweet and cute that at times you can't help but roll your eyes. However, just like the bitter old man in the movie, the kids and story eventually win you over and in the end this here really turned out to be a cute little movie. Yes, the story is predictable and there's some questionable acting and story lines but there's still no question that this movie was made to be sweet and not win awards. I was really surprised at how much I began to like this family and want to see them overcome all the odds that were stacked up against them. The oldest daughter Polly (Edith Fellows) was certainly a charmer and manages to really bring you into this family. I thought the other children were cute enough as well but I also really enjoyed the performance of Kolb and especially how he changed throughout the film. At just 58-minutes the film runs by super fast and I think fans of these family "B" movies should enjoy it. -
longrush16 November 2007The craft of fiction is a matter of physically stacking the cards. The art of fiction is doing so in a manner that no one notices that the cards have been stacked. The problem with this movie is that it is easy to see just how the writers went about working the deck. It lacks all spontaneity.
There is a nice gauzy late-depression (1939) feel to it. "Grapes of Wrath" it isn't. There's a poor family of five children and a mother (no father even though one reviewer remembered one) who works hard to keep it all together. The stove smokes in their humble but clean kitchen. There's little food in the pantry. Not far away lives a hideously wealthy old man with his grandson. By contrivance, they are put together, and after a series of near disasters (I never believed there was real jeopardy), things are put aright in a warm and fuzzy way. You sort of knew that this wasn't going to be a tragedy when you saw all those cute kids.
The acting is of the present day sitcom variety, i.e. not very good, litotes for bad. But there is one exception. The little girl, youngest of the children, is marvelous. Too often very young actors sing-song their recited lines. Not so here. What ever became of her? This is a rather nice movie to watch when you're not feeling well. It passes the time while not requiring a thing from you. -
JohnHowardReid12 March 2016A very minor comedy for the kiddies' market, distinguished only by the unbilled appearance of Bruce Bennett as Kolb's chauffeur. Henry Freulich's pleasing photography shows far more skill than Charles Barton's totally routine direction.
No less than five people contribute to the writing credits and one would think that with all this talent paving the way, the end result would be a script that would have been way, way more interesting. Instead, as other reviewers have commented, the plot is obviously stacked and lacks all spontaneity.
All told, I'd give this movie an extremely generous four marks out of ten and I have written about it here solely because the sequels are so much more entertaining. -
mark.waltz18 January 2021Yes, it's sickingly sweet. Yes, there's barely a plot involving the legal ownership of a mine that wealthy Clarence Kolb wants to prevent widowed Dorothy Peterson from claiming but when he meets young Polly (Edith Fellows) and her siblings (Tommy Bond and Dorothy Anne Seese) through grandson Ronald Sinclair, he suddenly finds he can't go through with his scheme. Being forced to quarantine with them over a measles scare also opens his heart (and wallet), especially when Fellows gets sick.
There's plenty of comedy mixed with pathos but this is a fun B family picture based on a series of children's novels with Fellows more natural than Shirley Temple (although Seese is directed to overdo the cuteness so she comes off more like a Temple knock-off, 1934 style) and Kolb perfect as the typical big hearted curmudgeon. The kiddie car sequence is very funny and gives this a taste of the classic Our Gang from the early 30's. Everything's wrapped up nice and neatly in this first of four films.