Thrilling Days of Yesteryear: Almost the Truth—The Lawyer's Cut

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Getting a jump on the season


Well, with only a little more time before we officially hit the month of December, I figured I’d take this opportunity to gloat about the fact that I put more posts up here on the blog in November than any other month since January of this year...which probably makes sense, since it was at the end of that month that I was hired to write and edit for ClassicFlix.  I had time to get a chapter of Riders of Death Valley finished and I can also promise a new Doris Day(s) for Monday as well.  (I think I’ve finally got this “balancing of time” thing licked.)


I’m gambling that in December I’ll be able to keep posting tidbits at least every two days; frequent guest reviewer Philip Schweier has also made some contributions that you’ll see beginning this week, plus I have made some DVD purchases (please don’t everyone be surprised at once) that I hope will result in essays soon.  This week, the Classic Movie Blog Association will host a blogathon entitled Film Passion 101; it will consist of personal essays from participating members on the films that made them ga-ga over movies.  My love affair with the flickers has sort of been told and retold ever since construction began on this little scrap of the blogosphere but I’ll be contributing a piece on The Greatest Monster Movie of Them All, King Kong (1933).


Chris at Family Friendly Reviews will also be hosting a blogathon from December 20-22 that will showcase Christmas movie favorites; and seeing that The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ has stockings full of holiday-themed classics on tap it seems only fitting (get it?  Stockings?  Fitting?  Bueller?).  Thrilling Days of Yesteryear has already RSVP’d on this one, and my spotlight will be on one of my favorite Christmas comedies, The Lemon Drop Kid (1951).  (You are definitely encouraged to participate in this one if you so desire; the CMBA ‘thon, however, is a members-only deal.)

In the Look-What-Else-Santa-Is-Bringing-Me Department, this little Jim Dandy…


…is currently on sale at Amazon.com for $39.99, as I discovered to my delight whilst making a humble Christmas purchase for my nephew who’ll be spending his very first Yuletide out in the Pacific Northwest.  (It combines two of his kid passions: trains and Lincoln Logs.)  I can’t swear that the price on the Essential Laurel & Hardy Collection is the lowest it’s ever been but it’s definitely the lowest I’ve seen, and I would have been a fool not to snap one of these up.  (When I told my mother the news she was positively thrilled, it says here.)

No, even the thought of more discs crossing the threshold of Rancho Yesteryear cannot shake my mom’s good mood because my beloved sister Debbie and her husband (and niece Rachel) will be visiting for Christmas, and that’s all a mother could ask for.  (And when mi madre is in the best holiday spirit, she bakes a metric ton of cookies…and that’s all a son could ask for…)

Riders of Death Valley – Chapter 8: Descending Doom


That’s right, cartooners!  We’re back!

OUR STORY SO FAR: Jim and his Riders are trapped in the “Lost Aztec” mine by Wolf and his men, without food, water or horses.

Jim discovers a back entrance, through which he sees and whistles to his horse, and rides for help.

Wolf, Butch and two others give chase and open fire.  Jim slumps in his saddle, and his frightened horse races for the nearby sand dunes and into a blinding sandstorm.

Wolf and his followers watch as Jim is blotted out by the whirling sand and…

Okay, I know it’s been mid-August since I’ve done an installment of Serial Saturdays…but it hasn’t been that long to the point where we’ve forgotten that Wolf (Charles Bickford) had only one follower watching Jim (Dick Foran) being blotted out, and that’s faithful toady Butch (Lon Chaney, Jr.).  Butch is so devoted to the Wolf Man (see what I did a second time?) that I bet if you looked on the underside of his saddle you’d find “Mrs. Butch Reade” written multiple times.


And what of Jim, who’s been left to die in a sandstorm while his useless horse Smoke stands around, waiting for a sugar cube?  Seriously…this nag is as useless as tits on a bull.  (I’ll bet Trigger or Champion would have dragged his ass out of there by now.)


As you can see, though—Jim is okay and he’s walking it off.  (Yeah, rub some sand on it, too, big guy.)  In the meantime, Wolf and Butch have ridden back to join the rest of the Reade gang, who are still exchanging gunfire with Benton’s Death Valley Riders, stationed at the entrance of the Lost Aztec Mine.


DAVIS: Did you get Benton?
WOLF: No…he rode into a sandstorm…I think he’s a goner
DAVIS: Good…without a leader they can’t hold out long…

Davis is, of course, Rance Davis (Monte Blue), second-in-command to the Panamint power broker known as Joseph Kirby (James Blaine), who’s been mostly absent from the past several chapters because Rance is away on assignment and those orphanages in Panamint don’t foreclose themselves, you know.  In the matter of Davis, who’s almost as bad a brown noser as Butch, he seems to believe that the Riders organization will fold like a lawn chair without the guidance of Benton…when the real reason why Jim is the “leader” is because he’s the only one among them who can do long division.

The gunfire continues apace, and there’s a shot of Benton making his way back toward the group riding faithful ol’ Smoke.  At the same time, Trigger (Jack Rockwell), one of Wolf’s henchies, is also stumbling back into the line of fire—he’s been out for a while, owing to a scrap he had with Benton at the back entrance of the mine.  Wolf makes his way over to where another of his goons, Pete Gump (Richard Alexander), has stationed the groggy Trigger out of the line of fire.


TRIGGER: Benton jumped me…hit me over the head with a gun…
WOLF: Never mind that…

“You’re covered under ACA, stop yer bellyachin’…”

WOLF: …did you find the entrance?
TRIGGER: Yeah…
WOLF: Good!  Butch!  (Butch makes his way over to where Wolf and Trigger are stationed)  Any of the rest of them see ya?
TRIGGER: No…
WOLF (to Butch): There’s a back entrance…you’ll have to cover it…
BUTCH: Yeah…but we ain’t got enough men!
WOLF: That’s right…

“I knew there was a flaw in my evil scheme somewhere…”


BUTCH: I know how we can do it, though!
WOLF: How?
BUTCH: Blast the other end of that cave!
WOLF: With what?
BUTCH: There’s plenty of powder down there in that wagon

By golly, he’s right!  And of course, since Wolf orders him to go get it, Butch is only too happy to run down to the wagon, snatch the keg and carry it back to where they are…while being shot at by both Benton’s men and his own friends. (Butch…compadre…maybe he’s just not that into you.)

As Butch is completing his little chore, Wolf calls out to Davis…

WOLF (reaching into his vest pocket): I want you to go to Panamint…
(He hands Rance the gold nugget Butch found in Chapter 7.)
DAVIS: But I thought you said…
WOLF (cutting him off): Never mind what you thought…take this gold quartz to Kirby, tell him what’s happened and get these claims filed… (Davis starts to leave) Wait a minute…just remind him, and don’t you forget that I’m in fifty-fifty…
DAVIS: I’ll tell him…

“…on our yacht off Bora Bora!”  Meanwhile, inside the mine, we’re witness to a stimulating intellectual discussion by the two MENSA members of Benton’s Riders: Pancho Lopez (Leo Carrillo) and Borax Bill (Guinn “Big Boy” Williams)…


BORAX: Hey, Pancho…ain’t that Butch sneakin’ down between them rocks?
PANCHO: Yeah… (Drawing his gun) I get that Butcher!

Pancho fires a few rounds and comes close…but close only counts in horseshoes and that powder keg Butch is carrying.  Tombstone (Buck Jones) comes over to tell his friend that “you can’t hit anything with an empty gun,” since Pancho is out of ammo…and Tomb’s attempts to hit Butch fail miserably as well.  Butch makes it back to base camp, and Wolf orders Trigger to show him and Butch where the back mine entrance is located.  As the trio heads toward their destination, Wolf barks orders to henchman Rusty (Ethan Laidlaw): “Keep ‘em busy!  We’re goin’ around the back way!”

Jim has made his way back to the action, and from a distance he watches as Wolf, Butch and Trigger make off with some of the horses Reade had Rusty corral in the last chapter.  Jim has no ammo to speak of, but he’s devised a cunning plan—so cunning…okay, I actually don’t have anything for this because I used up all the “cunning plan” jokes in The Adventures of Sir Galahad.


First, Jim sends Rusty off to Slumberland with the business end of his pistola.  Then, making sure he doesn’t tip Pete and Dirk (Roy Barcroft) off that his six-iron is empty, he orders them to drop their guns and march over to where he’s standing.  Which they do, and Jim has Dirk truss up Pete like a dominatrix in an S&M rodeo.  We then head back to the mine, where Jim’s partner, the lovely Mary Morgan (Jean Brooks) is concerned…


MARY: I hope Jim makes it into Panamint all right…
TOMBSTONE: Oh, so that’s it!
MARY: Oh, Tombstone…
TOMBSTONE (smiling): Oh, he’ll be all right… (Pushing her back with his gun arm) You better keep out of the line of fire…


“And make us some more coffee, huh, sweetcheeks?”  By this time, Jim has Pete and Dirk thoroughly tied up and looking properly embarrassed.  “I wanna thank you boys for corralling my horses,” he gloats, pushing Dirk’s hat down over his face as he takes his leave.  The two hombres are left to their own devices on how to escape being tied up.  (“Stop rubbing up against me, Pete…you know how excited I get!”)

Tombstone and the others watch as Wolf, Butch and Trigger ride off toward the back entrance.  “I wonder what those walleyed sons of misery are up to?” he muses.  (For the record, I call “Walleyed Sons of Misery” as my new band name.)

TOMBSTONE: They haven’t fired a shot in ten minutes…
PANCHO: Maybe they don’t got no more cartooges…
TOMBSTONE: I think you got something there…

“Sounds like broken English.”  Mary then spots Jim riding up on Smoke with horses he filched from Pete and Dirk, and he’s given a hero’s welcome despite not having done anything remotely heroic.  Wolf, Butch and Trigger, in the meantime, have arrived at their destination…but Trigger tells the two men: “We’ll have to make it on foot.”

TOMBSTONE: So, Jim…what happened?
JIM: Plenty…they’re headed for the back entrance of the tunnel…Pancho…you and Smokey stay here with Mary…come on!  We’ve gotta stop ‘em!


At the back exit, Wolf asks Butch for the powder and then tells him to get his fuse ready.  But before the fireworks can begin, sharp-eared Wolf hears Jim, Tombstone, Bill and Tex (Glenn Strange) stomping around to the back entrance.  The three men make their way down the draw a way with designs on ambushing the other four when they emerge.

BUTCH: I wonder how Benton got out of that sandstorm…
WOLF: Listen…when you’ve planted him six feet underground and build a monument over him he’d still get out of it!

So…Jim is a zombie, then.  (That’s going to wreak havoc in his relationship with Mary.)

BUTCH: Yeah…but I ain’t ever seen the man yet that you didn’t get sooner or later…

Ass-kisser.  Wolf spots our heroes coming out of the cave entrance, and orders Trigger and Butch to “let ‘em have it.”  So the monotony of continuous gunfire begins again.


BUTCH: We ain’t got a chance against them down here, Wolf!
WOLF: Oh, yes we have…shoot for the powder keg!

A couple of shots are fired, and Jim spots the keg—so he tells the rest of his bunch to get the hell back inside.  The powder keg is hit, and things blow up real good!


TRIGGER: Well, that blocks this end…
WOLF: Yeah…let’s get back to the horses…

Boy, is he going to be surprised when he gets back to the remuda and not only finds no horses, but Pete and Dirk sharing a cigarette.  Naturally, a loud explosion like that draws the concern of Jim’s gal Mary, who’s sobbing to Pancho as Jim and the rest reach the front of the entrance.  Jim orders Borax to get the wagons loaded up and the team hitched, and then directs Pancho and Tex to fetch the remaining blasting powder.

TOMBSTONE: What’s on your mind?
JIM: To close up the entrance to this mine so we can bring some supplies up here…

What the…?  You’re going to destroy all the work you did in Chapter 6 so that you can…what exactly are you doing again?  Oh, I forgot…they’ve got fifteen chapters to fill.  My bad.


And that’s that.  “Well, that ought to keep it hidden from Wolf and his gang ‘til we get in and file on it,” says Jim smugly.  And with a “let’s went!” our heroes ride onto…


Panamint!  (It’s only a model.)  And before you can say “Panamint City Bank,” Jim and Mary are arranging for the needed capital to mine the beejeebus out of the Lost Aztec, with the blessing of bank president Lafe Hogan (Jack Clifford), whom we haven’t seen since Chapter 2.


HOGAN: So you think you’ll need $20,000 to get the mine going?
JIM: Easily…
HOGAN: I’ll loan you what you need, Jim…but…it’ll have to be a short-term note…
JIM: Oh, that’s all right, Lafe…I know what conditions are…
HOGAN: Maybe things will be better in sixty days…and I can give you an extension…if you need one…
JIM: Thanks, Lafe…I knew we could depend on you…

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that, Jim…I’m probably the world’s worst CEO, if that business in Chapter 2 is any indication.”  The action then shifts to Hank and Madie’s Broadway Social Club—our pet name for the drinking establishment owned by respectable bidnessman Joseph Kirby, who is pacing up and down in his back room office, irritated that his aide-de-camp Davis has gone missing.

KIRBY: I can’t figure out what happened to Davis!
BUTCH: He sure had plenty of time to get here and file on that claim…
KIRBY: By not getting here he’s left everything wide open for Benton

Outside in the saloon, we spot Davis entering through the swinging doors.  He spies Kirby’s lackey Dan Gordon (William Hall) dealing crooked hands at one of the tables, and asks him if Kirby’s in his office.


KIRBY (as Davis enters): What happened, Davis?  What held you up?
DAVIS: I got caught in a desert storm…worst you ever saw!  I thought I’d never get out of it!
KIRBY: Well, that storm cost us the Lost Aztec!
DAVIS: What?!!
KIRBY: Yeah, Benton’s already filed his claim…right now, he’s arranging with Lafe Hogan to finance the operations!

Now, I wouldn’t blame you if at this point in the narrative you’re wondering how the two competing factions—Jim and the Riders & Wolf and his mugs—managed to avoid Operation Desert Storm while Rance blundered right into it.  Writers.  Be.  Lazy.  Oh, and after Kirby’s line there’s a quick cut back to Lafe’s office where the banker is seen handing a draft to Jim and Mary, commenting “Glad to return a favor, Jim.”  (“Seeing as you pulled my fat out of the fire on account of  that bone-headed transaction that nearly cost me my bank!”)


KIRBY (as Gordon enters): Did Benton make a deal?
GORDON: Sure did…he gave that Hogan a quick claim deed as collateral…
DAVIS: Which means if Benton isn’t able to pay up in sixty days that the mine goes to Hogan?
KIRBY: You’re dead wrong, Davis…it means if Hogan isn’t able to pay off on time…the mine belongs to us
BUTCH: Why not let me and Wolf hijack the equipment on the way out to the mine?

“Cause…that’s what we do best, you know…”

KIRBY: No…Benton knows the mining business…we’ll let him put up the mill…sink the shaft…get everything ready for production, then move in…
DAVIS: Well, I hope it works…
BUTCH: Maybe we oughta have a couple of our own men working for Benton…
KIRBY: I already have Buck Hanson and three or four men working for him right now…
BUTCH: Good!


The scene then shifts to…okay, I need to stop right here and register a complaint.  We’re eight chapters in, and even though I have suspended my disbelief on multiple occasions as far as this serial is concerned…explain to me why it takes six friggin’ chapters to find this lost gold mine, and ten seconds to get a first-class mining operation up and running.  (I think my eyes are trapped in the back of my head from rolling them too often.)

Anyway, the Lost Aztec Mine is going great guns, and as an establishing shot shows Jim Benton a-ridin’ up in the distance, Mary is stopped by a man (Ed Payson) whom Kirby has already identified as “Buck Hansen,” and who has also been designated as being on the Kirby payroll.


HANSEN: How about that money I asked you for?
MARY: Mr. Hansen, I’m responsible for the payroll and I can’t advance you any more money…
HANSEN: Well, I need it, and I need it now
MARY: Well, I’m sorry, but… (She looks off to her right and sees Jim riding up) Here comes Mr. Benton…you talk to him about it…

Mary then walks over to greet her partner and main squeeze.

JIM (as he ties up Smoke): Hiya, partner…
MARY: It’s about time you got back…
JIM: How things been?
MARY: Not so good, Jim… (She nods in the direction of Hansen) Hansen had another fight with the foreman…

“Unfortunately for Buck, it was George Foreman.  He was unconscious for three days…”


JIM: Ah, that’s too bad…he’s a good worker when he wants to be…
MARY: Yes…but he causes an awful lot of trouble…
JIM: Well, don’t worry about him…I’ll take care of it…
MARY: Did you get the payroll?
JIM: Yes, sir!  Right here in these saddlebags!
MARY: Oh…swell, Jim!  That means you made a deal on the ore!
JIM: Yes, on delivery in Panamint…
MARY: Then we’ll be able to meet that note when it’s due?
JIM: That’s right!

Oh, if only it could be due by the next chapter and put us out of our misery.  The scene shifts to Tombstone, who’s riding a shaft elevator up to the surface…he’s carrying a block of wood with him and chipping at its surface with his knife.  He spots Jim talking to Mary and walks over to where they're standing while the sinister Hansen watches from behind a tent flap.


TOMBSTONE: Happy?
JIM: You betcha! (He pats the saddlebag)
TOMBSTONE: Perfectly satisfied, huh?
JIM: Yeah!
TOMBSTONE: Well, get worried

“How would you like to comb some of this rotten timber out of your hair?” he asks his pal, showing him the piece of wood.  Tombstone located it half a mile down the shaft, so Jim hands the saddlebag to Mary and tells her he’ll meet up with her at the office later.  The two men then make tracks for the elevator, with Jim stopping to tell a man identified as “Charlie” to let the ‘vator down easy so that they can have a good look at the cribbing.

As Jim and Tombstone disappear into the hole in the earth, we spot “Trouble” Hansen observing from his tent, and he emerges from his hiding place to make his way over to where Charlie is lowering his bosses on the elevator.


JIM: You know, Tomb…I can’t figure out how the cribbing in this shaft could be rotten so soon…it was just put in…are you sure?
TOMBSTONE: I’d hate to drop the weight of an egg on it…


Well, the rotten timbers in the cribbing essentially act as a metaphor (here’s where the serious film criticism comes in) for the fact that the operation has been infiltrated by the no-goodnik Hansen, who hits Charlie with a sap…allowing him to pull the lever and send our heroes to their descending doom!


I love the little miniatures of Jim and Tombstone as they hit bottom, by the way.  Suck it, CGI!

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Happy Thanksgivukkah!


I can’t vouch as to whether or not that turkey is kosher…but I do want to wish everyone the best of the combined holiday seasons from all of us here at Rancho Yesteryear.  (El Brendel courtesy of Louie at Give Me the Good Old Days!)

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Children should be seen and not heard


For those of you who passed on taking the German elective, the “Die Kleinen Strolche” in the above screen capture is what the Hal Roach Studios’ Our Gang comedies were called in Deutschland.  On this side of the pond, the famed series is referred to as either “The Little Rascals” or “Our Gang”—though this last appellation usually applies to the fifty-two MGM one-reelers produced from 1938 to 1944; Roach sold the series to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and although he eventually bought it back from the mega-studio they kept the rights to the name.  During the original run of Our Gang, beginning in 1922, title cards of the comedies were usually adorned as “Hal Roach presents His Rascals.”

This dissertation on Our Gang is being presented today because I recently purchased a 2-DVD set (yes, at the same time I bought the Max Davidson and Female Comedy Teams collections, thanks for noticing) of fourteen silent Our Gang comedies from 1927-29 (a smattering of the surviving shorts that Hal Roach produced under his new contract with MGM) released by Kinowelt.  While the Roach Our Gang sound comedies have been made available on DVD through RHI/Genius Entertainment, and the MGM one-reelers from Warner Archive, a good set of the silent shorts is often hard to locate.  For instance, the silent Gang comedies that Roach produced for Pathé (1922-28) wound up being sold to National Telepix and other distributors for television, and these people went at the shorts with a chainsaw, removing their main titles and substituting their own (they were televised under various names like The Mischief Makers and Those Loveable Scalawags and Their Gangs).  I’ve bought a set or two of these shorts from various mom-and-pop places and some of them are just a downright mess.

So it’s nice to be able to own a DVD of some of these comedies…the only problem is, they’re from the period when the Our Gang franchise was at a particularly low ebb, in a creative sense.  The series really wouldn’t pick up again until the sound era with additions like Jackie Cooper, Matthew “Stymie” Beard and of course, George “Spanky” McFarland and Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer.  The comedies in this DVD collection feature veteran members like Joe Cobb and Allen “Farina” Hoskins, but you also have kids like Harry Spear and Jay R. Smith (hired apparently because he had more freckles than the departing Mickey Daniels) who really didn’t add too much to the proceedings.  Still, the series continued to be popular with moviegoers…and there are one or two entries that generate some mirth (and a couple that are just flat-out-bizarre), plus the viewer also becomes acquainted with some members who transitioned to the sound era like Jean Darling, Mary Ann Jackson and Bobby “Wheezer” Hutchins.

It’s a toss-up between two shorts in this collection for the coveted “What the…front yard?” award.  In Dog Heaven (1927), the Gang’s beloved dog Pete is planning to commit suicide by hanging himself.  (I swear I am not making this up.)  The dog feels betrayed by his owner, Joe, whose attention to his best friend has been diverted to a girl named Clarabelle (it’s always a dame)—he’s even spent the money he was saving to buy Pete a new collar on that fickle female.  The event that buries the camel in a big straw stack is when Pete, having saved Clarabelle from a possible drowning, is accused by several individuals of having pushed the gal into the drink in the first place…fortunately, an eyewitness who viewed the incident from the get-go is able to clear the canine, and Joe and his pals rush back to save his mutt from the rope in the nick of time.  Now…you can’t argue that this isn’t an offbeat short (and its humor is definitely of the jet-black variety, which appealed to me)—and unusual in that it was directed by Robert A. McGowan (a.k.a. “Anthony Mack”), the nephew of frequent Our Gang helmer Robert F. McGowan, who’s considered the least-inspired of the franchise’s directors—but you sort of have to wonder what effect it had on the kids in the audience when it was released in 1927.  (I imagine more than a few wound up in therapy.)

Wiggle Your Ears (1929) is the other two-reeler that will have you scratching your head in wonderment.  Mary Ann Jackson is in love with young Harry Spear, who is able to perform the titular task for her delight…alas, poor Joe is unable to so his love for Mary Ann is continually rebuffed.  But Mary Ann finds herself having to compete with a rival in the form of Jean Darling, who is also captivated by Mr. Spear’s charms.  Harry has Jean in the palm of his hand…until he experiences a cramping of the ears and is unable to per…look, you don’t need the Enigma Machine to decipher the Freudian overtones of this short.  It was also filmed in extreme close-up for some odd reason; my memory may be a little rusty but I seem to recall that Leonard Maltin and Richard Bann speculated in their invaluable reference book Our Gang: The Life and Times of the Little Rascals it was either a technical error (the wrong camera lens was used) or was done on purpose for parody’s sake (I’m convinced it was the latter).  Interestingly on this DVD, you can watch the short in its original presentation or see it as it was shown on German television (the screen cap at the beginning of this essay is from the animated introduction of the show)…


…which is accompanied by a bit of narration and voices representing the kids (all in German, of course).

I found myself amused by the last short on the collection, Saturday’s Lesson (1929)—which was the final Our Gang silent comedy (though it was released in between two of their newer sound shorts, Bouncing Babies and Moan & Groan, Inc.).  The kids are grumbling because it’s Saturday and their mothers have loaded them up with chores (Farina has rugs to beat, Joe wood to chop, etc.), with the moms warning them that lazy kids will soon answer to “the old devil man.”  Fortuitously, a man (John B. O’Brian) dressed as Beelzebub himself (he’s carrying a sandwich board touting Mephisto heaters) overhears the kids and decides to pose as Satan with the help of a few smoke pellets.  Scared sh*tless at being confronted by Mephistopheles, the kids race home and begin Project Chores in earnest, thanks to some speeded-up action via the cameraman.  This is the highlight of the two-reeler; Joe, in particular, is so rattled that he chops wood with the fury of a kid possessed, and when his mom (Orpha Alba) is convinced there’s something wrong with him she orders him to bed…prompting him to leap out when she’s not looking and haul ass and elbows back to the woodpile.  (She insists on giving him a dose of castor oil and when he complains, Devil Guy appears at his window…prompting Joe to grab the bottle and chug down its contents.)  Okay, it’s way too heavy on the moralizing (at the end, the Gang addresses the audience to tell the youngsters to mind their mothers…oh, and stay in school, kids!) which wouldn’t become prevalent until MGM got hold of the series…but the gags involving the kids’ new work ethic are pretty hooty.

There are also good moments in another silent comedy released at the time when Our Gang was transitioning to sound—Cat, Dog & Co (1929), in which yet another lesson is handed down to the kids that they should be kind to animals.  This is the woman who imparts that lesson, by the way:


You might recognize her as Hedda Hopper, and it is a shame that she did not practice this same kindness when she embarked on her later career as one of the truly monstrous people of Hollywood.  There’s a running gag in Cat that finds Joe bothered by a pesky flea; he keeps picking him off his person and depositing him on the ground (because kindness to animals) and the flea (animated) keeps hopping back on Joe for a ride.  The highlight of the short is an entertaining sequence where Wheezer dreams that he’s been put on trial, charged with cruelty to animals (the special effects in this one are a lot of fun) who have become his judge and jury.

As for the rest of the material…the entries range from amusing (Noisy Noises) to just plain time-passers (Crazy House).  The Spanking Age (1928) utilizes an interesting storytelling technique in that none of the adults are seen from the waist up—it’s not unlike a Tom and Jerry cartoon.  Oliver Hardy has a cameo in Barnum & Ringling, Inc. (1928) as does Eugene Pallette (Babe is a tipsy guest, Pallette a hotel dick).  The nadir of this set is Spook Spoofing (1928), in which the audience learns not only are scared kids uproariously funny but African-American kids being frightened generates twice as many laughs.  The Our Gang shorts have their defenders and detractors; the latter group pointing out that there’s a lot of uncomfortable racial insensitivity in some of the comedies.  Spook Spoofing is enough to give the franchise a bad name (the gang takes sadistic delight in playing practical jokes on Farina, portrayed as a kid who carries a lucky “mumbo-jumbo” charm to ward off evil); it’s presented on the set in its two-reel form although it apparently was released originally as a three-reeler…but believe me, two reels of this nonsense is plenty.

The Our Gang set also features some promos for DVDs also offered by Kinowelt…one of which is several collections of Get Smart released under its German title, Mini-Max.  I kind of giggled at this because there’s footage from the episode “The Groovy Guru” and it’s funny watching Larry Storch being dubbed by a German actor.