Cracker barrel philosophy and homespun humor

Posted by Jim Mayor on May 19th 2023

So This Is Washington (1943) is another of the movies with the OTR personalities Chester Lauck playing Lum Edwards and Norris Goff as Abner Peabody. The radio show played from 1931 to 1954, and the two made several movies in the 40s. This is a good one, assuming you can put yourself in the right frame of mind and not be bothered by country folk being country folk. This is, of course in wartime when things were scarce and rationing and recycling was the norm. Lum and Abner, normally, just ran the general store called the Jot Em Down Store in Pine Ridge, AR. The boys desperately want to assist in the war effort but don’t know how. Of course, there was a rubber shortage. Abner, who makes things to sell, makes a batch of licorice which turns out to appear to be perfect as synthetic rubber. They hear Chester W. Marshall’s (Alan Mowbray) radio show encouraging common people to come to him with ways to assist in the war effort. So, off to DC they go. The boys can’t find a place to stay and Marshall is inundated with crank inventions so the boys settle on a park bench. They overhear two people (important people, of course) with a problem that can be solved with their back country “expertise.” Here I must rely on IMDb’s better information: “Today's audience wouldn't get the whole gist of the joke if they were not familiar with Bernard Baruch who was an elder statesmen and financier from before World War I who was known for dispensing his wisdom from a Central Park Bench in New York City.” And as they say, “The film is just 64 minutes of cracker barrel philosophy and homespun humor.” That was a different time, but you can’t say a better time.