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Hal Roach began the “Our Gang” series of short during
the 1920’s but the most popular ones were created by Roach
in the 1920’s. Roach sold the rights to MGM at the end of
the 1930’s which allowed the shorts to get a facelift of
sorts using MGM’s sets to give the sense that many of these
shorts had much bigger budgets than they really did. The
later members our gang included Robert Blake (“Baretta”,
“In Cold Blood”)but the most popular period featured Spanky,
Alfalfa and Buckwheat. The later MGM shorts had less of
a racial overtone to them than the earliest ones (and the
racism although often there was often mild but could be
surprising such as one short entitled “Ye Olde Minstrels”
where the gang perform in black face while Buckwheat played
by an African-American child was in whiteface) but while
most of these children had a great deal of fame as children
it rarely if ever grew into fame during adulthood. ***
These vintage shorts are very entertaining but you have
to forgive them their occasionally politically incorrect
and sexist attitudes. Adults that grew up on these films
will view them fondly while children and teens growing up
today might not. ***
Warner Archives has made the Our Gang shorts available
in a 5 disc collection where it is burned on demand. I’m
not surprised that these titles many of which have entered
the public domain haven’t been offered up for regular retail
sale due to the change in attitudes and morals over the
last 60 years. Rather than let them languish and rot in
a vault somewhere or license them out to another retailer
that might not do them justice, Warner has elected to release
these as they recognize the demand for these popular shorts
even if it is a limited audience. ---
Image & Sound:
These are the original unedited shorts that were presented
in theaters during the 40’s. They are presented in chronological
order with some looking significantly better than some of
the public domain prints and those presented online simply
because Warner has the original prints to work from. Black
levels are fairly consistent throughout and detail solid
although there are more than a few shots that are a bit
soft. ***
Audio is presented in the original mono and while it’s
nothing to write home about, it makes the dialogue as clear
as possible. ---
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