kenjha Newlyweds leave behind city life to become chicken farmers. Hilarity ensues - or so hoped the filmmakers. Unfortunately, the comedy is forced and unfunny and it goes on much too long. Although based on a best-selling novel, the episodic script fails to sustain any kind of narrative flow. It runs out of steam long before the final credits roll. Colbert and MacMurray have both made some fine comedies and they try hard here, but aren't given much to work with. Also, they were a wee bit too old to be playing young newlyweds. Surprisingly, this anemic comedy was a hit at the box office and launched the Ma and Pa Kettle series of films, as well as the "Green Acres" sitcom.

DKosty123 Fred MacMurray & Claudett Colbert star in a romantic comedy which is pretty well done. More important in the long term was the supporting cast which they had - especially Percy Kilbride & Marjorie Main. This film is actually a movie pilot.The Kettle family was created here and became a series of films after starting in 1949. This family became dear to a lot of the film publics heart because it is the depression type big old farm family. Granted not every family featured Richard Long as a child as this one would, but the mom & pa that Main & Kilbride created resonated with the public strongly.This movie was a little better than the series of films because it does concentrate more on Fred & Claudette's plot, but overall the film is just a good one. If you are a fan of the Kettles, this film is essential in showing you where the idea of the folks started. It is interesting that Main's character also got a start with Abbott & Costello in The Wisful Widow Of Wagon Gap, but in spite of that, it took the balance with Kilbride to really round out her Ma Kettle character.

mukava991 I have always had fond memories of this film ever since I first saw it on TV as a child. The comic situations seem tailor-made for the juvenile mind – chiefly the slapstick sight gags involving the inevitable mishaps suffered by urbanites adapting to farm life, including uproarious encounters with barnyard animals and rural eccentrics. In fact this seems like the inspiration for the 60s TV series GREEN ACRES. The screenwriters have taken liberties with Betty MacDonald's original memoir, retaining only the shell (married couple acquires chicken farm in isolated setting) and a few of the subsidiary characters (chiefly the Kettle family, thereby ensuring their cinematic immortality). Most of the incidents are invented for the screen in a feat of imaginative skill, some inspired by passing commentary in the source material. One of the major changes is taking original characters whose ages are 31 and 18, respectively and casting them with Fred MacMurray (pushing 40 at the time) and Claudette Colbert (mid-40s). Also, MacDonald herself grew up in rural surroundings and was somewhat familiar with "farm livin'", whereas the Colbert character comes from a distinctly urban and even pampered upper-class background making the transition to farm wife that much more extreme, with funnier results. The depiction of the dilapidated farmhouse is much stronger on film than on the page. The wood-burning stove (so intimidatingly difficult to handle that MacDonald personified it with the name "Stove" in the book) is cleverly brought to life; Colbert has many wonderful moments as she interacts with this hilariously inoperable monstrosity. MacDonald's descriptions of the timid dog Sport are also rendered deftly and hilariously thanks to the interaction between a well-trained canine actor and the inimitable Colbert.The screenwriters give the Kettle family (headed by the great Marjorie Main at her scene- stealing best as "Ma" and Percy Kilbride as "Pa") several more at-home children (in the book it's only 6 or 7 – the rest being grown up, married and off to their own lives) and successfully explore choice details of their lives (farm animals in the kitchen, Ma Kettle's personal tics – like itching her torso -- the family rush to dinner, the way Ma tosses a few ingredients together and comes up with extraordinarily delicious baked goods, etc.). Colbert and Marjorie Main make an excellent oil-and-water team (Main has said she and Colbert didn't exactly warm to each other during filming). The film is well paced – nothing goes on too long and every scene contains a funny or touching quality. Colbert makes you care about her character; you're rooting for her all the way as the demands of the farm are far more challenging to her than to her husband. Throughout is a parade of colorful rural characters, the Kettles being the most spectacular.Regarding "political correctness," some people may wince at the way Colbert initially reacts to some local Indians who help her husband hunt game. She screams in terror as if they're going to scalp her. Other than that, they are portrayed as rather taciturn individuals who are always hanging around the edges of the action. But if you want florid political incorrectness of the most extreme variety, check out the original book wherein MacDonald goes on for paragraphs trashing the Indians right and left. She even describes a picnic of Indian families in which their behavior is depicted as slovenly, unsanitary, violent and irresponsible. If anything, the screenwriters seem to have been aware of the author's slanted views and done their best to minimize them. In fact, Colbert is promptly corrected by MacMurray for unnecessarily hysterical behavior.It's also a wise screen writing move to have eliminated the baby daughter from the core of the narrative. A baby would have diffused our focus on the central characters.So – those who have never seen this, give it a try. It's light entertainment with the extra zing of the unusual. You can't go wrong with Claudette Colbert and Marjorie Main in top form.

Chuck Straub I stumbled upon 'The Egg and I' while trying to find some of the old 'Ma & Pa Kettle' movies. It was great to find out that 'The Egg and I' was the first movie that used Ma and Pa Kettle as characters. Of coarse the Kettles were excellent in this movie. They were such a hit with audiences viewing 'The Egg and I' that it hatched the Ma and Pa Kettle film series. Although the Kettles are an integral part of the movie, don't be misled and watch this with the intentions of watching a Ma and Pa Kettle movie. This is a romantic comedy with Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray playing a young couple from the city that buy a run down farm. The entire movie revolves around this couple and their experiences. Most likely the 'Green Acres' TV series predecessor. Around this couple come a very interesting cast of characters of which the Kettles are a part. This movie is a simple, good old fashioned, clean cut, comedy. Sit back and enjoy the great acting and cast of characters. You'll be glad you did.