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Thanks for the memories!

Memorable, crazy movie

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This comedy classic is in my top 5 favorite episodes of the Our Gang Series.I'll start with my Granddaughter Sami who recently had her first ballet recital. At the moment of truth froze up and ran off the stage into the comfort of her Mother's arms. When the show was over I said to my Daughter-In-Law, "Sami Froze up like Daisy Dimple!" Of course my Daughter-In-Law replied, "Who Is Daisy Dimple?" Hence my review begins now! Spanky the new leader of the gang due to the departure Of Wally Albright and his limited contract, Performs in front of his Mother's friends reciting Shakespeare. Spanky projects his prose perfectly to the delight of his wannabee stage Mother. Spanky's reward? Mother is entering him in a talent show. Show business is not to Spanky's liking as he practices to the company of his talking parrot as the gang member's show up at his window.The only way out is to have Spanky flop on stage with the help of his gang and an endless supply of Pellets and spit balls. On with the talent show as Spanky dressed in full Michigan State apparel(A ROMAN SOLDIER)we'll do everything in his power to bomb on stage. Ironically Spanky was picked to go first by the Master of Ceremonies Tom Herbert but his pushy Mom (Kitty Kelly) who bears a striking resemblance to actress Barbara Stanwyck protests that you Don't have a talented actor the likes of Spanky to go on first. Some of the Acts were entertaining to watch .Honorable mention to The Hawaiian Dancers and the Cabin Kids and most importantly the Arizona Nightingales featuring a young freckled Carl Switzer who makes his first of many appearances in the series as the the High pitched off key singer Alfalfa! Now it's time for our cu pie faced Dancer Daisy Dimple to perform and try to win the cash prize of $10.00 but she choked in front of a bewildered audience and all those eyes!! Spanky comforts the crestfallen girl and claims he'll win her the money for her ballet costume. Spanky wants to go out to the audience to tell his friends not to ruin his act and that he want's to win after all. Instead Spanky's Mom intervenes and goes over to the rowdy troupe and tells them that her son wants to win. Spanky from the Stage winks at them and the gang is confused so the gang sticks with the original plan of abuse and spitball to the disdain of out toupee d Pianist James Morton seated between the stage and the arsenal. Spanky goes on and the rest of the short is sheer pratfalls combined with howling comedy with a grand finale of Grandmother Mae Wallace pulling up the final curtain to a ripped dress. Great episode to show your grand kids if they failed on stage.

This short is an offshoot from the previous Our Gang short "Mike Fright". Which featured the gang performing in a children's radio talent show. In that short the Roach studio first brought in the obnoxious stage mother but not in a major way. That changes with "Beginner's Luck" where the stage mother has a major focus.It opens with Spanky reciting to his mother's friends and it is quite clear that he has no talent at all but his mother announces that she arranged for him to appear in a local children's amateur show, it's obvious that his mother thinks he is a mega star. The grandmother and Spanky protest all to no avail. Later the gang comes to tell Spanky they will sabotage his act.When the arrive at the theater Spanky befriends a sweet little girl who needs to win the prize to buy the special costume she's wearing. She suffers from stage fright and flops. Spanky decides to win the prize and give the girl the money to get the dress. He must get the word to the gang to stop their bombardment but his mom won't let him leave the stage and she delivers his message to the boys making a huge mistake in the process. The gang thin he still wants to loose.Spanky walks on the stage and the kids start their razzing. He stands there trying to recite and dodge peashooters and speak over their noisemakers. The audience think it's a spoof of a Shakespeare recital and start to laugh. The mother is standing there and she can't believe her eyes and begins to wave to tell him to come off the stage. The MC is standing next to her and sees what his mother is doing so he waves for the kid to go on. In the process of avoiding the peashooters Spanky flips down his visor which gets stuck and he is now wandering around on the stage blind and trying to lift his visor. The act has turned into a laugh marathon. The mother has had enough and asks the MC to take him off but she is rebuffed so she then decides to go out and take him off but the MC grabs her and pulls her back. Then she goes back stage with a pole and tries to pull her son off. She starts off having trouble with the pole peeking under the curtain and making wild swings on the stage then the mother winds up taking off the piano players toupee then sticking the pole into a stage light. The grandmother and the MC are looking at Spanky on the stage and then looking behind the stage and laughing at the mother's antics. Eventually the mother hooks him and starts to pull him back. The Grandmother tells the MC "Here's where we stop the show"! They turn Spanky's mother from a person trying to rescue her son into a girl in need of rescue herself. The audience loves this turn and laugh at Spanky's mother at a near riot level. The grandmother took her actions to teach her daughter a real good lesson for putting Spanky into this situation. Spanky reacts to seeing his Mother in a humiliating situation and tries to rescue this backfires and mortifies her much worse.Even though Spanky has little actual talent through a series of turns he winds up winning first prize. When the gang informs Spanky they will ruin his act he stops the pet parrot from warning His Mother by putting a fish bowel over the bird. Then the Mother's error of arriving at the theater not having Spanky dressed and her run in with the MC who then holds his act till the end. Because Spanky was still standing waiting he meets Daisy and then decides to win the prize for her. Then you have the mother not letting Spanky go speak to the gang and doing it herself which results in the kids not understanding Spanky's message. The grandmother is first annoyed that the Mother put Spanky into this acting experience then as the mother and Spanky are having run ins with the MC The grandmother bursts out with loud laughter laughing at how funny it is watching the mother who's in it way over her head. The grandmother has watched the daughter take it way to serious announcing she wouldn't have her son laughed at. In the end the Mother's rescue attempt is thwarted by the grandmother who decides to teach Spanky's mother a lesson and put her the position of the butt of the audiences laughter as Spanky's Mother winds up falling victim to the gang, MC and Grandma.Clearly the Roach Studios were taking a shot at the armies of stage mothers they had to deal with running a series with child actors. They certainly loved watching the character of Spanky's Mother suffer.This is a very good short with the stage performance of Spanky being hilarious.

"Beginner's Luck" is another "Our Gang" short film and like most of these it runs for slightly under 20 minutes. The original is black-and-white, but there is also a colored version out there. The director is Gus Meins ("Babes in Toyland" starring Laurel and Hardy) and he made this film 5 years before his suicide when he was accused of sexually abusing several boys. This puts his work with the Gang into a slightly dubious light. Anyway, this short film here is probably neither among the most famous nor among the least known Our Gang films. Spanky is the star this time and his mother wants him to win a talent contest. The film starts of nicely, but as it goes on, it quickly turns into a talent contest with several participants who really have nothing to do with the movie series. Spanky's big final scene in-stage is also not as funny as I hoped it would be. What do we learn from this movie? Maybe that soccer moms already existed 80 years ago. But that's it. Not too interesting or funny of a watch and I don't recommend it. Many better Our Gang short films out there.

This is my favorite Our Gang short. It has everything that I recall fondly: rowdy fellowship and kids conspiring against adults resulting in innocent mischief. Although the series had already been around a dozen years, for me the master cast was the Spanky, Buckwheat, Alfalfa period. This was the first with them together.And it has my own favorite trick, the simple fold of a show within the show. That gives the producers an opportunity to have some "straight" child performances. These always have puzzling appeal. And then there's the joke performance with us sort of sharing in the audience.(This is a replacement comment, the original having disappeared.)Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.