So's Your Aunt Emma! (1942) User Reviews

"Dummy up or I'll flatten ya!"

[csteidler · 7/10 · 8 September 2011]

Zasu Pitts is wonderful as Emma Bates, an unassuming small town lady who makes a trip to the big city to see a boxing match and ends up holding her own in the middle of a mob battle.

Zasu is sweet and odd as Aunt Emma, staid in appearance, a respectable woman; however, Zasu is a riot when she takes on the role of "Ma Parker," that much-feared lady gangster who carries a gun in her umbrella and can "shoot silver dollars out of the air."

The plot, for what it's worth, involves Emma's visit to see the boxer son of an old flame, some gangsters running the boxing game, some shooting and kidnapping, and a newspaperman who can't catch a scoop if it lands in his lap but is nevertheless a good hearted guy with whom Zasu strikes up a friendship. It all wouldn't make much sense, I'm sure, if you were to study it too closely…but why would you?

Lots of fun, especially for anyone who's a fan of Zasu's peculiar charm.

A heck of a lot better than I expected...

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 3 July 2010]

Zasu Pitts plays Emma--a spinster who lives with her very legalistic and sexless sisters. Despite this, Emma is a pretty nice old lady--sheltered but sweet. One days she's reading about a young boxer who just happens to be the son of an old boyfriend--a boxer of whom her nasty sisters did not approve decades earlier. On a lark, Emma decides to head to the city to watch the guy fight.

Once in town, she sees that the young boxer is not at all focused and is a bit of a weenie. Emma decides to stick around and give him a bit of advice. However, some gangsters see her and think she's the dreaded 'Ma Parker' (a takeoff on Ma Barker of gangster fame from the 1930s). And, though a series of mistakes, she's caught up the middle of a murder and the police think she might be responsible! Oddly, however, instead of running from this mistaken identity, Emma decides to play it up to the hilt and pretend to actually be Ma Parker! Why, in order to infiltrate the mob and discover where the young boxer is--as he was just kidnapped.

All in all, a crazy and unbelievable sort of plot but it was made enjoyable by Pitts' sweet character. Despite being a B-film from a third-rate studio (Monogram), it's a very enjoyable little comedy mixed with a bit of film noir. Not great--but certainly a lot better than you'd expect.

"I'm the big cheese in this rat trap"

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 28 December 2015]

It helps enormously if you're a big fan of Zasu Pitts before you tune in to So's You're Aunt Emma. She's the whole show in this film or as she put it, the big cheese in this rat trap.

Fluttery spinster Pitts decides to take a trip to New York from her little town to see Bud McTaggart fight in a preliminary bout at the Garden. She was involved back in the day with his father and Bud could have been her kid.

But once Pitts hits the umbrella she constantly carries makes her mistaken for the notorious Ma Parker known to carry a rod in that umbrella and known to shoot fast and deadly. Pitts gets involved in a gang war with racketeers Tris Coffin and Douglas Fowley and she also helps reporter Roger Pryor who befriends her gain the scoop of the year.

I have to say Pitts is really especially after being schooled by Pryor she picks up all the gangster lingo.

So's Your Aunt Emma is funny in spots, but you'd better be a fan of Zasu Pitts.

Good Fun For Zasu Fans

[earlytalkie · 22 May 2012]

More and more lately, I've been seeing films made during the 30s and 40s by the poverty row studios that I find to be competently made and enjoyable, and this one is no exception. Zasu Pitts really shines as Aunt Emma, who befriends the boxer son of her former boxer beau. There are a good bunch of character actors which you will recognize like Warren Hymer and Dick Elliot (The mayor in the early "Andy Griffith Show".) But this is Zasu's show all the way as she battles gangsters and stuffy sisters. Monogram made this and you will recognize the music over the main titles as the same heard in "Let's Go Collegiate" and "Freckles Comes Home". This seems to be an unofficial theme song for the Monogram comedies of the period. I saw this streaming on YouTube complete in one download, and the quality was good, with none of the audio going out of sync as I have seen in some longer YouTube videos. If you are a fan of Zasu Pitts, you will enjoy this entertaining trifle which runs for barely over one hour.

Make it 7.5!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 25 July 2016]

So's Your Aunt Emma (1942): Zasu Pitts has one of her best roles ever in this reasonably entertaining newspaper comedy-drama centering on hoodlums in the fight game. Would you believe, the script actually permits Zasu to throw off her usual bumble-headed characterization by turning her senseless stupidity into an "act" to disguise her real purposes, as she blows the head off the fight- fixing games pursued by rival mobs. Zasu is aided by Roger Pryor's out-on-his-ear reporter and our lovely heroine, Gwen Kenyon, plus sexy bad girl, Elizabeth Russell. Tris Coffin is also in there pitching as a gangster, and I'd also draw your attention to the lovely little Eleanor Counts who can be spotted as the little blonde hat-check girl who stands outside the box. It's hard to believe, I know, but this movie was actually directed at a remarkably lively pace by Jean Yarbrough of all people! Mind you, he had a good script to start off with and production values are unusually high by Monogram standards. Available on a very good Grapevine Video DVD bracketed with So This Is Washington.

Never underestimate sweet spinsters with a loaded umbrella.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 7 June 2014]

Memories of an old, failed romance motivate small town spinster Zasu Pitts to escape from her two sour sisters and go to New York to motivate the son of her late prize-fighter ex. He's a rookie in the ring, tied up with organized crime, and along with ace reporter Roger Pryor, Pitts comes up with a scheme to expose the racket for what it is. She is confused for the notorious "Ma Parker" and utilizes this to her advantage, turning her square language into spicy lingo and learning to stand up for herself in the meantime.

Zasu is the whole show here, going from milquetoast to tough gal without the blink of her fluttery eyelashes. Zasu was to "Oh, Dear!" what Tallulah was to "Dahling", and takes this characteristic to a more street-wise level as she manages to outwit the dim-witted hoodlums who shoot first and load their brains later. Elizabeth Russell ("The Corpse Vanishes") is memorable as an icy gangster's moll with divided loyalties, while Douglas Fowley is sweet as the naive prizefighter whom Pitts comes to love as the son she could have had. All in all, not bad for a Monogram programmer, with laughs, action and of course lots of Zasu's characteristic hand-wringing.

Look past Alpha Video and Monogram films and you will see the real Zazu Pitts in action.

[Bernie4444 · 5/10 · 1 February 2024]

One day they may clean up the picture but when you get into the story, the bad copy may just add that 1942 ambiance.

A spinster known as Aunt Emma (Zazu Pitts) to her friends missed her chance to marry a prizefighter. However, after his death, she takes a chance to help his son to become a great fighter. She travels from a small Midwest town to the big city. There in her efforts to help him, she crosses paths with several criminal types. They spot her umbrella and mistake her for the guntote'n Ma Parker criminal type. Soon the bad guys are being dispatched like flies. Maybe she is Ma Parker. Let us watch and see who is next.

Above average Monogram B thanks to Pitts and hip script

[phlbrq58 · 7/10 · 7 November 2019]

Allowances made to poverty row productions; this is really fun. I'm saddened by a recent read that many aged under 20 have never watched a b&w film. They'll never know the charm of, " Go on, take a powder. "

Terrible ordeal to sit through

[mrdonleone · 1/10 · 28 October 2019]

There is little pleasure I would be getting to ever see this boring junk again. It had nothing to say, went extremely slowly against all expectations and Zasu Pitts disappointed me as the leading lady. The whole thing was just a boring completion of nonsense. Glad I forgotten this junk as much as possible, don't remind me!!

So's Your Aunt Emma

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 13 April 2023]

What makes this daft little crime thriller so much fun, is the underlying premiss that even the nastiest of criminal types will still defer to a determined, feisty old lady - even if they would otherwise happily pull out the teeth of their enemies with a blunt screwdriver! Zasu Pitts is just such an old spinster, who becomes ensnared with a gang who are rigging boxing matches before unexpectedly (and really completely implausibly) being implicated with the deadly murderess "Ma Parker"! It's a lovely, simple little yarn - peppered with some wonderfully Mary Poppins-esque language; never a cuss word crosses her lips; and her ability to get squiffy by just holding the glass adds a gentle, friendly, class to this simple story. There are others in the cast, but they don't - nor d.

What a fun movie! Zasu is wonderful

[brier-chung · 8/10 · 19 August 2019]

I wasn't expecting entertwined sub-plots in such a short (just over an hour) comedy. Zasu Pitts is delightful in her portrayal as Aunt Emma. I would watch it again, which is part of my rating it so high-it got an extra star from me for that.

good

[Cristi_Ciopron · 7/10 · 6 March 2016]

A comedy with ZaSu Pitts, Fowley (as a manager and racketeer), Tr. Coffin (as Fowley's rival) and two sedulous girls: Elizabeth Russell as the naughty one, and Gwen Kenyon as the honest one, it has an actual plot, about racketeers and kidnappings.

R. Pryor was a mediocre choice for the clueless reporter, because, if he looks enough unintelligent, he's also very unlikable, he looks faded and sullen, and a very unlikely partner, in the script's terms, for his glamorous fiancée. But the running gag of him missing all the scoops was funny.

Gwen Kenyon sings a tune, garnished with the leads' cheek by jowl.

ZaSu's style was a bit ostentatious and recherché (with a paradoxically lifelike result), as she didn't choose to play the keen old woman known from some mystery novels, but an overacted loony, mawkish, soft and milksop, so that her character comes across as occasionally shrewd, but usually soft-minded; it is precisely this ambivalence that gives her role some plausibility, because the actress plays a spinster more lifelike than the detectives usually imagined for the whodunits. D. Fowley benefited from a malleable appearance, a pushing, bold guy. But the movie's style, engaging, cheerful, casual and confident, is more important than its cast, the roles' writing being modest. Good direction and hardboiled plot, stock characters, expectable cast. And the outlaw impersonation could of scared the spinsters, but certainly not an interlope.

A good comedy from a modest studio.

Pitts Outshines The Cluttered Plot

[dougdoepke · 16 June 2019]

It's an eye-catching title, sure to get attention of wartime audiences looking for escape. Pitts' character Aunt Emma is an inventive comedic creation. On one hand, she's a sedate old maid ruled by two prim sisters; on the other, once outside their influence and taking up with newspaper reporter Terry (Pryor), she gains self-confidence and transforms subtly into an assertive mastermind. Too bad the clotted narrative crowds her transformative humor; that is, until the end when she gets needed showcase having mastered the street-tough lingo of that day. It's like Mother Hubbard sounding like Al Capone.

The supporting cast includes familiar faces, such as Fowley, Hymer, Elliot, and Coffin. But I especially glom onto Elizabeth Russell. With her cat-like eyes, once you see her you don't forget her, as the great Val Lewton knew when he cast her in a number of his classic horror films of the 40's, eg. Cat People (1942).

All in all, it's an unusual light-hearted crime flick that unfortunately piles on too much plot that the clever Pitts and her fluttery humor must compete with.

fun title!

[ksf-2 · 6/10 · 1 May 2023]

Aunt emma (zasu pitts) gets caught up in a fight fixing mess when she's mistaken for the leader of a gang. She gets rough and tough to catch the crooks, even though she's a prim and proper young lady. It's all pretty over the top, and that's the running gag. And the city editor fires the one guy that has the whole story. It's okay. Emma saves the day, but the last twenty minutes were shot in the dark, so we never really see what happens. Pretty annoying. And right at the end, it sounds like one of the lines is dubbed out, so we don't even hear the punch line for what the old lady said. Even the captions couldn't catch it. More annoying. Keep an eye out for dick elliott.. he was the mayor in andy griffith. Directed by jean yarbrough. He had worked with kings of comedy hal roach and abbott and costello. Story by harry hervey. Pitts had started in the early silents, and made a zillion talkies, but was probably best known for mad, mad world. Bud mctaggart died young at age 39 in a swimming pool accident.