Safety in Numbers is a 1938 American comedy film directed by Malcolm St. Clair and starring Jed Prouty, Shirley Deane and Spring Byington. It was part of Twentieth Century Fox's Jones Family series.[1][2]
Jones family patriarch John Jones is convinced by swindlers that the town swamp contains valuable mineral deposits. The ruse is exposed when some local youth fall into the swamp. The townspeople raise a ruckus and the matter is resolved satisfactorily.[3]
New York Times film critic Frank S. Nugent notes the formulaic foundation of the Jones Family series and “the obviousness of their scripts.” Mr. Jones (Jed Prouty) is “up to his neck in swindlers” and the family’s welfare is put at risk, as in all Jones saga films. Ma Jones (Spring Byington) offers advice on her radio program, and the youngsters, Jack and Lucy (Kenneth Howard and June Carlson, respectively) “puzzle” over matters of elopement and matrimony. Nugent concludes that it would be difficult “to deny the friendliness and likability of their pictures.”[4]