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Simply A Masterpiece

Excellent but underrated film

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

. . . of caring for one or more young kids suddenly thrust upon them. MILK AND MUSH is one of the most helpful films ever produced to explain exactly what to do when you find yourself in such a situation. Say you're a guy who's just finished a 30-year stretch in the state pen, and you get paroled in time to go bar-hopping during Happy Hour. Suppose that you then have the further good fortune to run across a willing lady who's not particularly choosy when she's in her cups, and you hit it off for an hour or three. Since you do not yet have a place to stay in the outside world, she kindly invites you to her home. However, the fly in your ointment pops up the next morning, when she's running a little late getting ready for another day of work under the Golden Arches, and there seem to be about a dozen Pre-school kiddies running around loose underfoot throughout her double-wide because their regular sitter has the flu. What to do? Mom wants to know if you're "good with children?" You don't want to disappoint on your first day out of the slammer, so you reply "Uh-Huh?" and Mom says "Bye, then, see you at six." How do you kill the next eight hours? What if the little tykes get hungry? Why not clobber two owls with one rock, MGM suggests, and feed these Little Rascals MUSH AND MILK?

"Mush and Milk" is an 18-minute live action short film from 1933, so this one is already way over 80 years old. It features all the child actors from the 1930s known as "Our Gang" or "The Little Rascals" who were among the biggest stars during the early years of sound film back then in the United States. Of course, it is a black-and-white movie. I have seen some of these films from the same series and I am not very impressed at all. Story-wise, it was a pretty weak film and the desperate attempt to rush in a touching story (as it happens so often with "Our Gang") did not work out at all. The director is Robert F. McGowan and he worked on many of these Rascals short films. The star here is probably George 'Spanky' McFarland and that's fine as he is probably the only somewhat funny approach. The music is nothing special this time, a song performed by one of the Rascals is even very painful to listen to, maybe intended that way. All in all, it's just not a rewarding watch at all. Spanky's changing face expressions when the dog drinks the milk felt rather bizarre and not funny and same can be said about most other segments here. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

Mush and Milk was one of numerous school-oriented Our Gand comedies. This particular episode had, as its setting, Bleak Hill Boarding School, which bore sign saying it offered LOWEST RATES and "MOTHER'S CARE(?)" I wonder if the Dickens novel Bleak House furnished inspiration. The "MOTHER's CARE(?) logo proved what a dump this boarding school was, with Louise Emmons portraying the disagreeable old crone who headed the school, a dasmal dame if ever there were one. "Dasmal dame" is a woman who plays DOMINEERING MOTHER. Cap was sharp contrast; he was kind and understanding; Gus Leonard was just the actor for that sort of role. (He did stellar job later in "Lucky Corner" as Scotty Becket's grandpa.) Gus did not mind the silly answers that the kids gave in class, and surely appreciated Spanky's getting up to answer the phone, when James Finlayson, as Mr. Brown of First National Bank, told Cap that his back pension had arrived, something that he had long waited for (but which the crone who ran the school SCORNED). Cap's receiving this wonderful news, and his treating the kids to day at amusement park, calls to mind recent developments in MY life, to wit, improvement in living standard after settlement of Mom's estate, in form of larger apartment, new car, etc. Surely, Mush and Milk was heartwarming, especially with Cap's confidence that things would turn out all right, something that the Little Rascals came to believe.

An OUR GANG Comedy ShortIt's just MUSH AND MILK for the Rascals to eat at the Bleak Hill Boarding School, which is run by a wicked old crone. Her elderly brother, Cap, loves the kids and has promised them a good life if ever his back pension arrives. Spanky, Stymie & the Gang wonder if that day will ever come...This is a very funny little film. Highlights include Stymie & Dickie trying to milk a cow, Spanky's recitation of Mary Had A Little Lamb & Butch's crooning `Just Friends'. That's Cap Leonard as Cap, Louise Emmons as his dreadful wife and - hilariously - James Finlayson as the banker.This was to be the last OUR GANG appearance by Dickie or Wheezer. Richard `Dickie' Moore had been with the Gang for two years and was featured in 7 of their films. He appeared in several other movies before leaving the business in the 1950's. He's now married to actress Jane Powell. Bobby `Wheezer' Hutchins had become a Rascal at the tender age of two, and now, at the ripe old age of eight, had starred in 59 shorts. He made no more films. In 1945 he died in a military plane crash - he was only 19 years old.