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6/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Kentucky Kernels remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have a rainy afternoon and you don't mind black and white chaos, you should probably give Kentucky Kernels a look. It is perfect for people who like the Three Stooges but wish they were a bit more wordy and wore better suits. If you hate puns or kids who break everything they touch, you will probably want to throw your remote at the wall.
It starts out with Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey as out-of-work magicians. They are basically professional losers, which is always a good setup. They help this guy Jerry adopt a kid, but then Jerry just... leaves? He elopes and leaves these two random guys with a toddler. Spanky McFarland plays the kid, and he is basically a tiny wrecking ball in a sailor suit.
I forgot how much Spanky could carry a scene just by looking annoyed. He has this bit where he keeps hitting people, and the adults keep trying to 'pay it forward' by hitting each other. It’s a very 1930s kind of joke that goes on for a long time. Maybe a little too long. 🤠
The plot shifts gears fast when they find out Spanky inherited a giant estate in Kentucky. They head down south and suddenly it’s not a magician movie anymore. It’s a feud movie. The Wakefields and the Milfords have been shooting at each other for years, and now these two city dorks are right in the middle of it.
The transition is pretty jarring. One minute they are doing card tricks, the next they are dodging actual bullets. It reminded me a bit of the tonal shifts in The Conflict, though obviously way less serious. The movie doesn't really care about the 'why' of the feud, just that it allows for more gags.
There is this one scene where they try to act like tough guys to scare the families into stopping. Woolsey has his cigar, as always, and he's talking a mile a minute. I think he’s the funnier of the two, honestly. Wheeler has this puppy dog energy that is okay, but Woolsey feels like he’s actually from another planet. 🛸
The feud stuff gets pretty dark if you think about it too much. People are literally trying to kill a child for his land. But the movie keeps it light with weird sound effects and people falling over. It’s a strange balance.
I did find myself laughing at the 'greatest magician' bits they do early on. It feels like they actually knew some of those tricks. Or at least they were good at faking it. It’s a bit like the stage energy you see in Popular Melodies, just with more screaming.
The ending is a total blowout. They use a literal smoke-pot and some fake cannons to win the war. It's noisy and the editing gets a bit choppy. I think they ran out of film or maybe just time. 🎞️
Is it a masterpiece? No way. It’s a bit of a shambles, really. But there is something so human about how messy it is. It doesn't feel like it was polished by a hundred executives. It feels like a bunch of guys in 1934 had a kid and some guns and decided to see what happened.
If you've seen things like The Untameable, you might find this a bit too silly. But if you just want to see a kid kick a guy in the shins while a man with a cigar makes bad jokes, this is your peak cinema. It’s definitely better than most of the stuff they were churning out for the 'short' slots back then.
The physical comedy is the real winner here. Even when the jokes don't land, the timing is usually pretty sharp. You can tell Wheeler and Woolsey had been doing this for a long time. They finish each other's sentences in a way that’s almost creepy.
I’ll probably forget half the plot by tomorrow. But I’ll remember the image of them trying to feed a kid breakfast while everything in the room is breaking. That’s just good fun. 🍳
IMDb —
1918
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