Ma and Pa Kettle Movies

There were 10 Ma and Pa Kettle movies made from 1947 to 1957
There were 10 Ma and Pa Kettle movies made from 1947 to 1957

Want to know the best Ma and Pa Kettle movies?  How about the worst Ma and Pa Kettle movies?  Curious about Ma and Pa Kettle box office grosses or which Ma and Pa Kettle movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Ma and Pa Kettle movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

This Ma and Pa Kettle page comes from Dan.  Dan suggested this page on our Request Hotline many moons ago….so going with the approach better late than never…here you go….a Ma and Pa Kettle movie page.  Originally based on real-life farming neighbors in Washington state, United States,[1] Ma and Pa Kettle were created by Betty MacDonald in whose 1945 best-selling novel, The Egg and I, they appeared. The success of the novel spawned the 1947 film The Egg and I starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray, also co-starring Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride as Ma and Pa Kettle.

After the audiences’ positive reaction to the Kettles in The Egg and I, Universal Studios produced nine more films, with Marjorie Main reprising her role in all and Percy Kilbride reprising his in seven. The films grossed over $1.1 BILLION in adjusted domestic box office grosses.  Ma and Pa Kettle saved Universal from bankruptcy.

Every Ma and Pa Kettle movie hit Variety's Top Grossers of the Year charts
Every Ma and Pa Kettle movie hit Variety’s Top Grossers of the Year charts

Ma and Pa Kettle Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

Ma and Pa Kettle Movies Can Be Sorted 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Ma and Pa Kettle movies by who played Ma and Pa
  • Sort Ma and Pa Kettle movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Ma and Pa Kettle movies by domestic box office rank by year
  • Sort Ma and Pa Kettle movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort Ma and Pa Kettle movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
  • Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Ma and Pa Kettle Table

  1. Six Ma and Pa Kettle movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 60.00% of their movies listed. The Egg and I (1947) was their biggest box office ht when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
  2. An average Ma and Pa Kettle movie grosses $123.20 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  10 Ma and Pa Kettle movies are rated as good movies…or 100.00% of their movies. The Egg and I (1947) is their highest-rated movie while Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1955) was their lowest-rated movie.
  4. Only one Ma and Pa Kettle movie earned an Oscar® nomination…..and that was for Marjorie Main as Best Supporting Actress in 1947’s The Egg and I.
  5. An average Ultimate Movie Ranking  (UMR) Score is 60.00.  10 Ma and Pa Kettle movies scored higher than that average….or 100.00% of their movies. The Egg and I (1947) got the the highest UMR Score while Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1955) got the lowest UMR Score.

Check out Ma and Pa Kettle movies career compared to other performers/groups.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

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38 thoughts on “Ma and Pa Kettle Movies

  1. I’m astounded by your review on Further adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle
    The link from letterboxed.com brought me to this space ( dated)

    I grew up in the 70’s watching Ma and Pa Kettle , my favourite Martian
    Original looney tunes cartoons and all the good stuff we now call vintage 😉
    I have bought copies of Fuerther adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle because …..
    I remember our broadcasting was 10 years behind America (in the days when we had no internet )
    In rural areas you had to wait to watch tv and radio was limited so we had Dad and Dave at 2 pm on the radio ( wireless , that did not mean no wires lol or blue toothed)
    My Dad worked for channel 7 , 6 IX as a radiologist
    We had one of the first colour tvs in Perth
    If you compared fun tv in those days to previous days you may say that you are better off as technology improves the quality.
    We used to love to watch ‘ The Good Life’, and Some Morhers do Av Em ‘ and ‘On the Busses ‘
    I only liked The Good Life as Frank Spencer annoyed me too much . As an Adult I loved it ! I hated on the busses , they were ‘ old’ ! I love it now because I can relate , they are my age ;-0 hallarious ! Vintage 🙂
    It’s precious to look at the smaller things in the picture , not compare with modern and take the jokes as tongue in cheek ( no one had intentions to insult in the day, it’s a modern twist that insults deliberately , modern wins votes with shock and horror where old fun was about bringing everyday life into drama, all, yes all, movies tv shows had a happy ending , and we were crushed when reality , modern theatre , television, cinema showed us you can not always defend hope 🙁 ? 🙁
    The ideas in this episode of future technology makes me amazed that a lot of the systems in the new house is now current in our lifestyles today!
    Incredible !
    I still don’t have the mod cons they have!
    I hope your sight rewrites the review as you had not started the review until after you researched and reported , and had not started at the beginning
    It, to me, was a lazy attitude and may be an immature response
    Here’s a cheer to your site which is very informative of statistical data 🙂
    And here’s to the crew of Ma and Pa Kettle ( a little off field, semi Alfred Hitchcock, reality is funny ?)
    Atari game was not fun when Nintendo etc came out with better games and graphics, but now, it’s fun and hallarious, same deal with movies , they get boring and then they are uniquely apart because the gap is so much wider with age

    Where are the origional Jerry Lewis movies? The Disorderly Orderly? lol F troop, And other politically incorrect era that reflected clashes in culture/or ability as humorous to make us laugh at ourselves ??????

    1. Hey Wendy
      1. Great comment…..it was fun to read your thoughts on Ma and Pa Kettle and your memories of your television programming. Wow …10 years behind.
      2. Thanks for the kind words about our website……at this point….I think we are reaching almost a million movie stats here….and that number grows and grows everyday.
      3. I will have to go back and check out the review you mentioned….I am thinking I have seen tow of the movies listed here…The Egg and I (the one that started it all) and hmmmm…..I can not remember which one.
      4. Always good to hear from people from Australia. Glad one of our Letterboxd links got you here…..years ago….I was a paying member of that website….but it is still my source to show which movies I have watched.3,079 movies since 2014…and every review is there.
      Thanks for sharing your movie thoughts…it is greatly appreciated.

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