The Best DVDs?

[Buppster]

As someone who has only recently discovered Our Gang I thought it might be a good idea if experienced members here could recommend whichever DVD releases that they thought were the best, for each era of Our Gang movies. I know that the MGM era is comprehensively covered by an official Warner Brothers 'Our Gang Collection,' which includes all 52 episodes made by MGM but what about the Hal Roach years? Which DVDs would you recommend?

[mtw12055]

For the Roach talkies, this set. When initially released, it contained a few non-original Blackhawk prints. Later individual volumes corrected this mistake, and if I'm not mistaken, the complete collection has also since been fixed. I'd recommend the individual volumes to be safe, but one of the later volumes if really hard to get. So yeah, go for the complete one:

www.amazon.com/Little-Rascals-Complete-Collection/dp/B001CDFY5U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1519489756&sr=8-2&keywords=little+rascals+complete+collection

General Spanky recently received a DVD release from the Warner Archive.
www.amazon.com/General-Spanky-George-McFarland/dp/B019RGD8AQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1519489899&sr=1-1&keywords=general+spanky

The silents are a bit tougher. There has yet to be a complete (or as complete as can be) set. But of what's out there, I'd recommend the Our Gang Collections from Reel Classic DVD, and a set from Germany. A lot of the other silent sets out there are cheap bootlegs.

reelclassicdvd.com/silent_era.htm

www.amazon.de/Die-kleinen-Strolche-1927-1929-Stummfilme/dp/B002880H7S/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1519489988&sr=8-3&keywords=die+kleinen+strolche

[Buppster]

Thank you very much for the suggestions, that sort of response was exactly what I was hoping for. There seem to be a lot of DVDs available that contain various combinations of Our Gang movies, many of which have terrible reviews because they're essentially nothing more than poor quality bootleg copies that have apparently been copied from YouTube videos. Obviously I wanted to avoid poor quality rubbish of that sort and your post will undoubtedly help me to do that.

[myhomeo]

The MGM shorts are also available in a similar collection, but I think they're harder to find.

[Buppster]

Hi,
     I got the Warner Brothers Archive 'Our Gang Collection' from Amazon, it's a set of 5 discs with all 52 MGM movies on it. To be honest after watching some of those it was almost enough to put me off Our Gang completely. Some of them are really dire and about as funny as watching an autopsy on one of your own family. However even among the MGM ones, especially the earlier movies, there are some glimpse of what might have been. The one in which Alfalfa dreams of being a cowboy is actually rather amusing and could easily hold its own with many of Hal Roach's movies. Anyway thankfully I persevered and when I saw some of the late 1920s and early 1930s movies my faith paid off because some of those are really good. I haven't seen many of the very early movies yet but I live in hope.

[mtw12055]

I'll add that you may want to try grabbing the General Spanky DVD from another website. The one on Amazon is about $40 now, for some reason.

[Buppster]

Feb 25, 2018 13:40:35 GMT -5 mtw12055 said:

I'll add that you may want to try grabbing the General Spanky DVD from another website. The one on Amazon is about $40 now, for some reason.

I'm in England and on Amazon.uk it's listed for just over £12.

[elvinmasih]

General Spanky and Our Gang collection is put out by Warner Brothers Archive
they make on demand when you order.
If you purchase through Amazon it will burned on DVD-R, not silver pressed discs

[Buppster]

Hi, I've got the Our Gang Collection so I knew that it was on DVD-R but provided that the picture quality of General Spanky is anywhere near as good then DVD-R will have to suffice, as really there's no alternative, if that's all that it is available as.