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Post by antifrodis on Dec 15, 2016 20:14:14 GMT -5
Okay. That footage is in my edit. The quality of mine varies from scene to scene, but it's more complete than anything else out there that I'm aware of. I'll try and post this weekend.
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Post by rarefilms on Dec 16, 2016 6:24:47 GMT -5
I've got "War Feathers" complete with the original main titles and production crew credits. The print has shrunk a lot, but it is a candidate for a restoration. My brother and I have been preparing quite a few Our Gang comedies for release. We just wanted to perfect the way the DVDs are created as there were some problems with the software we were using; we now have better software. We had to postpone the project for yet a few more months as we are currently restoring "Duck Soup" 1927 (Laurel and Hardy) for the 90th. anniversary.
Robin of C-W Films
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Post by ymymeatemup on Dec 17, 2016 16:23:30 GMT -5
UNEXPECTED RICHES (1942)
Things I like: The Fantasies. All three of the fantasies related by the boys (minus Spanky) are enjoyable in their own way. Buckwheat's fantasy is blatantly stereotypical, but nevertheless fun and stylish, and actually gives him an opportunity to do something for a change. Mickey's fantasy is typical of his 'sincere child' persona, and is greatly helped by his mother's reaction to the new washing machine. And Froggy's fantasy features his battleship mating call, easily the funniest gag in the short (which couldn't have been much of a challenge). The fact that such a large portion of the film is taken up by this material actually saves it from being a painful viewing experience.
Things I don't like: The Dumb. I can overlook the fact that these four little dimwits think they can figure out their individual weights by dividing their collective weight, or that they've only got one penny between them while simultaneously having ten cents in the club treasury - but the directions to the treasure are so obviously fake. If that note was really written by Captain Kidd, you'd think there'd be at least one "matey" or "ARRR!" in there someplace. The Unfinished Line. "You big - " Big what, Spanky? Kenneth is a big what??? Is it possible that Spanky's departure from the Gang after this episode was the result of his repeatedly completing this line of dialogue in the preceding takes?
Grade: C
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Post by RJH on Dec 18, 2016 22:04:57 GMT -5
Waldo's Last Stand (1940) - Waldo isn't getting any customers for his lemonade stand, and when the gang comes by, Spanky sees a sign and suggests they need a floor show. Darla gets a bunch of kids from her dancing school to perform for the one customer, newcomer Froggy. Froggy repeatedly refuses to buy lemonade despite cleaver attempts including giving him salty crackers and putting a heat lamp under his seat. In between the dance school acts Alfalfa croons accompanied by the Singing Waiters, the rest of the gang, but Froggy is unmoved. When finally pressed by Spanky why he won't buy any lemonade, Froggy breaks out his famous voice and says he has no money, and besides it's too hot there. Spanky then realizes that no more kids came to the show because they were all in the show.
Humor and plot are noticeably lacking in this MGM entry. I guess the highlight is the gang sampling Waldo's lemonade without paying and each telling him something different is wrong with it. They embark on an absurdly overblown effort to extract two cents from the customer. As in some other films, the cute professional dancers have no place in a real Our Gang comedy, and here they take up far too much of the time. I feel bad that Waldo had to have his name associated with this, and poor Leonard is back to not being allowed to speak, though that may not be so bad in this short. At the end, a donkey reacts to Spanky's realization of why nobody else attended, and the gang erupts in a forced laughter in which I felt no tendency to join.
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Post by ymymeatemup on Dec 28, 2016 2:13:31 GMT -5
WAR FEATHERS (1926)
Things I like: The Outlaws. Like the kidnappers in "The Mysterious Mystery," they may be bad guys, but they still have a soft spot for the kids, as exhibited by their genuine concern for Farina's bloated belly. George French is particularly comical. Beanie Walker. The unsung title writer is always good for some extra laughs, but this is one of his better efforts, as indicated by such titles as "Le's tell the Sheriff - He oughtta be able to find three men in a well." The Setting. Not that there's anything wrong with the Gang's usual neighborhood, but this series rose above all rivals by occasionally changing the regular format. This time, it's a western theme, and it's handled quite effectively. Most Everything Else. This is a gag-heavy episode with many amusing moments, but I'll mention three things: Farina's preacher father, who clearly doesn't want his boy to go anywhere near the unruly Gang; Bonedust, who gets his once-a-film moment of embarrassment when his pants fall down; and Farina's newly-adopted pipe-smoking mother, who quiets him down with a fly swatter.
Things I don't like: Pretty Much Nothing. Much of the humor in this short relies on racial stereotyping, perhaps moreso with the indigenous population than with Farina and family, but for those of us who have become numb to this type of content by repeatedly subjecting ourselves to silent comedy, it makes for pretty good entertainment. About the worst flaw to be found in this film is the completely fake bulging eyes on Farina as he notices the bear.
Grade: A-
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Post by ymymeatemup on Jan 3, 2017 18:46:24 GMT -5
WALDO'S LAST STAND (1940)
Things I like: Pretty Much Nothing. Or, if we're talking about the things that actually happen in the film: Nothing. However, the novelty of keeping Froggy quiet through most of the short, only to reveal his trick voice as he walks out, would be a pretty good idea in the hands of actual comedy producers. But alas, this was MGM, and Froggy's lack of screen experience makes his silent treatment look as though he'd recently traded his brain in for a can opener. But hey, that's why we've got the other boys on hand, so that their reactions to Froggy will give us something to laugh about.......................right?
Things I don't like: Alfalfa. There is a lot wrong with this episode, but it seems that Alfalfa always had a knack for making the viewing experience much, much worse. So, in between the other two musical acts (which don't actually benefit the film at all), he tortures us with his final singing performance in the series, while the other four boys provide comparable backing vocals (for those of us whose eardrums are still intact). And, Frankly, Everything Else. The musical acts? - about as forgettable as any ever seen in this series. The acting? - with every line of dialogue over-emphasized to make the meaning clear to every last 2-year-old in the theater, the performances are particularly wince-inducing this time around. The humor? - with every joke producing zero laughs (right down to the final one with the mule), I find myself baffled that this even qualifies as a comedy. A Couple Of Notable Details. "What that lemonade needs is a floor show!" - says Spanky, clearly aiming low in this instance, since nothing enhances a lemonade stand more than a theme park. "Now you-ou-ou-ou can have the twilight and you-ou-ou-ou can have the moon!" - warbles anonymous small girl, just in case we didn't otherwise find her adorable. In other news, I find it interesting that the one episode that has Waldo's name in the title doesn't have much of anything to do with him. I realize it's his lemonade stand, but it could have been anybody's lemonade stand and the story (what there is of it) could have been told the same way. We're barely even aware of his eggheadedness in this one.
Grade: F
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Post by RJH on Jan 5, 2017 23:23:53 GMT -5
Washee Ironee (1934) - Wally/Waldo's mother tells him he has to practice the violin to give a performance for her Maids of Olympia party, but when he hears the gang outside having a great time playing football he longs to join them. When Pete swallows a whistle, Waldo shouts out that he can fix it, by running a reducing belt around Pete's abdomen belly. He then is invited to play, and promptly dives into a mud puddle in the end zone. The gang tries to help him wash his clothes, and Spanky enlists the aid of a Chinese friend whose technique is to spit water on the clothes. The gang then puts the clothes in a modern washing machine, but put in too much soap and the clothes come out in a ridiculously small size. Waldo then appears at his mother's party wearing a lampshade, causing her to faint. Pete then chases a monkey and causes a lot of commotion. When the police are called, the gang beats it in Spanky's ambulance. When a traffic officer hears the real police siren, he ignores it, believing it to be Spanky's fake siren he heard twice earlier. This results in a fantastic pile-up of cars.
This has a lot of classic elements that made the series so good. There is the rich kid who would much rather play with the rough-and-tumble gang, and the gang trying to fix a problem they created and failing spectacularly. I like Waldo sticking his tongue out at the sheet music, and the gardener Sam is a good guy, giving Waldo a boost so he could look over the wall at the gang's football game. Spanky seems a natural as the take-charge captain. It isn't clear what the point in spitting water on the clothes before putting them in the washing machine accomplishes; it seems a bit forced to bring in the Chinese character. Spanky's shenanigans with the ambulance siren is an update of Wheezer breaking light bulbs to cross the busy street in "Bouncing Babies," and makes for quite a sight gag at the end. The adults are good, with the typical stuffy high-society type, her butler suffering in silence, and the traffic cop. One question is if the gang was able to procure a lampshade for Waldo, why couldn't they have gone to his room instead and find another set of clothes? The chaos with the monkey throwing ice cream at all the ladies may be a little overkill, but this remains a solid entry in the series.
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Post by RJH on Jan 9, 2017 23:17:18 GMT -5
Wiggle Your Ears (1929) - Mary Ann is infatuated with Harry because he can wiggle his ears, but he treats her badly at every chance. She has to push him in a cart, crack nuts for him, and spend her own money on ice cream cones for Harry ... and Jean, the object of his affections. Joe tries to win over Mary Ann, but fails since he can't wiggle his ears. Jean and Harry play that they're getting married, and in a last-ditch attempt to win Harry over Mary Ann dresses up like a flapper. That doesn't work, and she gives Harry her ring that Harry will use in the wedding. However, Joe enlists Wheezer's aid, getting the youngster to pull on strings tied to Joe's ears to make it look like he's wiggling them. This does work, while Harry's ears cramp. To stay with Jean, Harry has to push her on the cart and crack nuts for her, so he gets his just desserts in the end.
This gets off to a very unpleasant start with Harry kicking Mary Ann for no apparent reason as she's fixing a wheel on the cart. Harry's a complete jerk in this, and the only other time he was this rotten was when he dirtied the laundry Farina was delivering in "The Smile Wins." Mary Ann is totally out of character, here relegated to a fawning admirer of the ear wiggler. The performances are okay; I just don't like what they did to those characters. Jean is much closer to her usual character and plays her part well. Joe also does fine, coming up with a solution to achieve his goal. Wheezer is good throughout, making appropriate comments and responsible for my favorite part, hitting Harry in the rear with a stone from a slingshot while Mary is sewing his pants. Unfortunately he may be stuck trailing Joe and pulling strings to wiggle Joe's ears for the rest of his life. Farina does little in this, which is just as well, he mainly gives out advice including suggesting Mary Ann dress and put on makeup like a flapper after seeing a billboard. Much of the film is shot in extreme close-up, which is unsettling at times. I have no problem in understanding why it was never repeated. I'm just not a big fan of the theme of the kids acting out grown-up relationships. At least it ends well with Harry suffering at the hands of Jean.
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Post by ymymeatemup on Jan 12, 2017 1:58:30 GMT -5
WASHEE IRONEE (1934)
Things I like: Ellinor Van Der Veer. "Waldo, your B-flat in the obligato pianissimo needs more staccato!" Young Mr. Albright's haughty society mother is given perfect casting, and the miseries she suffers near the end of the film - well, some people just have it coming to them. Sam Adams. I might prefer Sidney Bracey in butler roles as a general rule, but Adams knows just how to take a vase over the head. Tiny Sandford. Perhaps the funniest running gag in the whole film is the one with the traffic cop. The final crash is particularly effective, not only because of how impressive the pile of cars looks, but because the filmmakers wisely cut away from the actual collision to show the crowd of pedestrians hiding their eyes. Spanky As Leader. With modern hindsight, it seems blatantly obvious that Spanky is the leader of the Gang, but to audiences of 1934, this was the very first time they had ever seen him presented this way. His diminutive height greatly adds to the humor of the situation, both in light of his choice in dames, as well as the way Leonard Kibrick follows his every order. (Speaking of Leonard, is it my imagination, or is his nose bigger in this episode than in any other?)
Things I don't like: The Pacing. I'm not sure what it is - perhaps the relative lack of incidental music - but this episode never seems to "merrily roll along" for me. Humor seems to be the overriding reason for its existence, but while some gags are standouts, the majority seem largely run-of-the-mill. The Chinese Laundry. Obviously to modern audiences, the stereotyping of the Chinese kid is already awkward enough, but there's nothing about it that adds any great humor to the short, and it does nothing to further the plot (which, of course, makes it very easy to trim it away for the TV print).
Grade: B-
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arno
Junior Member
Posts: 74
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Post by arno on Jan 12, 2017 10:10:28 GMT -5
I often wondered about his nose after seeing this picture.
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Post by RJH on Jan 15, 2017 23:27:04 GMT -5
Wedding Worries (1941) - Darla's father is getting remarried, but when Darla invites the gang to the wedding, Froggy convinces the others that they have to rescue Darla from her evil stepmother. The boys attempt to stop the wedding. Removing a doorknob and turning on the radio only delay the wedding a few seconds, so they bring out a canister of nitrous oxide, seen earlier when Dr. Hood pulled Mickey's loose tooth. The wedding guests act goofy for a few minutes, but then the maid catches the boys in the act, and they get sentenced to spankings.
This episode missed a wonderful opportunity to refer to evil stepmothers: those poor Wheezer had in "The Spanking Age" and "Dogs is Dogs" (though he had different sisters in them, Mary Ann and Dorothy). Failing that, this film is rather lackluster and lacking sense. Darla's father acts like he was never married before. Darla is happy about the wedding and is not a damsel in distress, and the boys are too old to believe the fairy tales Froggy mixes up are a perfect reflection of reality. It is unbelievable that they think that removing a doorknob from a room with multiple exits and turning on a radio would stop the wedding. The main point is the laughing gas. The adults' reactions are good, with them starting laughing at different times as the gas spreads through the room, but I prefer the times when the gang inhaled the stuff as in "No Noise" and Alfalfa in "Men in Fright." The boys also obviously overreact to the light spankings, and if there was going to be a punishment it should have been more creative and entertaining. The real-life (in the Our Gang universe) examples of wicked stepmothers would have made the boys' actions much more realistic, but without those I just don't care much for this.
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Post by myhomeo on Jan 16, 2017 17:05:40 GMT -5
Re: Wedding Worries. I was rather astonished Darla apparently has never met the woman her father intends to marry. I mean, I know it was another time, but still...
And that concluding spanking scene was all kinds of weird, what with mostly women (including Darla) enjoying the show and the apparent choice to make sure Buckwheat was spanked by a Black man, who was, naturally, dressed as one of the household help...
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Post by RJH on Jan 18, 2017 0:27:31 GMT -5
Young Sherlocks (1922) - After a failed attempt at prospecting for gold with Farina, Ernie meets up with Jackie, who tries to earn a living selling newspapers, and Mary Jane, who's afraid of being kidnapped by the man in the newspaper headline. Jackie sells a paper to a man who gives him a quarter, but Ernie drops it in a sidewalk grate outside a bakery that Jackie checks out to see if the baker is honest. When Ernie peers down the grate, he is overcome by fumes. He stumbles into the lair of the JJJ's, or Jesse James Juniors, that only the brave can enter. Ernie then spins a fantastic tale of how he rescued Mary Jane when she was kidnapped, with some help from Jackie and Dinah the mule. He and Jackie then took the reward money and bought a town and named it Freetown, making it into a kiddie paradise. Then Ernie's mother comes for him and his tale comes to an abrupt end.
The first part seems a bit extraneous, with Ernie going to great lengths attempting to find food, particularly milk from a nanny goat. A battle with a chicken shows he was the best acrobat the gang ever produced. Ever wanting to be a detective, Jackie has his own badge. The main part of this film of course is Ernie's story. He displays remarkable imagination and ingenuity, having to defeat the gang of six kidnappers. There is some cartoon physics, with him being knocked backward through the air several yards by the recoil of shooting a rifle, typically landing on another kidnapper. The disguises he, Jackie, and Dinah use at one point are reminiscent of those used by the Eegle Eye Detektive Agensy in "Hide and Shriek." It is interesting to see Mickey Daniels as no more as an extra and Jack Davis as slightly more than that as the JJJ members. It's nice to see Ernie and Jackie get the lion's share of the attention, before that would go to Mickey, Farina, and Joe Cobb. The choice of name and attire for that club is unfortunate. Something that seems wrong is that the club members have taken off their sheets when Ernie is near the end of his story. Also, if Ernie is as brave as he claims, he should have raced up the fire escape to rescue Farina in the Freetown sequence instead of assigning the dog Buster to it. Based on his Ernie's actions prior to that point, he could have scaled the fire escape at least five times as fast as the dog. That thing with the balloons looks very fake anyway. One burning question is why didn't Peggy Cartwright last much longer in the series? I liked her in the few she was in. In any event, the tall tale of the kidnapping rescue makes for an entertaining entry.
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Post by ymymeatemup on Jan 18, 2017 1:58:18 GMT -5
That how I first noticed it, too, but I thought maybe his nose was always that big and just wasn't normally seen in profile. Then the other day when I was watching "Washee Ironee," I couldn't help but notice the size and finally compared it to another episode ("Mike Fright") and realized that they really did make it bigger.
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Post by ymymeatemup on Jan 18, 2017 2:03:24 GMT -5
WIGGLE YOUR EARS (1929)
Things I like: Mary Ann. Unless some lost episode like "Growing Pains" or "The Holy Terror" turns out to be a revelation, this is the ultimate Mary Ann performance in the series, which is saying a lot. Not only does she succeed in tugging at our heart strings, but she also gets the biggest laughs in the short, especially while trying to "vamp" Harry. Harry & Jean. These two usually played second fiddle to the more crowd-pleasing kids, but this film proves that their inclusion among their ranks was well-justified. Harry is his usual hard-boiled self, but his callousness towards Mary is exactly what is needed to drive the story forward, and his ear-wiggling is consistently amusing. Jean repeatedly shows good acting chops, with the derisive look she gives Harry as he runs off to retrieve Mary's ring, the sheepish grin on her face as Harry wiggles his ears at the altar, and her battle-of-the-glares with Mary. The Music. Even though this isn't Leroy Shield music, it's still a much better use of the earlier music heard in talkies such as "Bear Shooters." And for anybody that knows the titles of these songs, the selections are usually appropriate for the given scene. The Gimmick. Much like the child's POV shots used in "The Spanking Age," the almost-constant use of extreme closeups in "Wiggle Your Ears" is the kind of thing that kept the series interesting. The folks at Roach wisely limited it to this one short, though, since repeating it would have undermined the novelty.
Things I don't like: Absolutely Nothing. Which is a bit surprising since, unlike most Our Gang shorts, this one relies heavily on putting the kids into an adult situation. If it wasn't for the uncanny performances drawn out of these kids and the truly funny way in which the subject matter is presented, this could have been disastrous. It helps, too, that Wheezer is on hand to give the raspberries to the older kids' nonsense.
Grade: A+
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