Aladdin's Lantern

The usual overacting of he Our Gang bunch. Spanky and Alfalfa put together a play based on the Aladdin story. But it turns out to be more of a musical review. It was all okay and I did enjoy the skills of the tap dancers, but nothing very dramatic. I guess this was featured in the late part of the Our Gang comedies.

Rather tepid Our Gang short, with the standard elements (monkey hijinks, Alfalfa song) not amounting to very much. Porky & Buckwheat steal the show (literally) and the flying carpet's not bad, but overall just so-so.

In 1938, producer Hal Roach sold the rights to his Our Gang series to former distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Sadly, the series did not improve under the supervision of MGM. But the Gang's first year or so at the studio brought some decent entries. ''Aladdin's Lantern,'' the third MGM release, was sadly the last by longtime Our Gang director Gordon Douglas. Douglas still manages to present enough charm in this short to keep it entertaining.

The premise is that Spanky and Alfalfa are putting together a show based on the story of ''Aladdin.'' But trouble arrives when star Darla quits.

This ten minute romp has a good share of fun moments. For instance, the kids' homemade gadgets, such as a rigged flying carpet, are quite enjoyable. But the real stars are Buckwheat and Porky, who constantly interrupt the show with their adorably unrehearsed rendition of "The Fountain in the Park." And no Our Gang show would be complete without a song by Alfalfa.

But the film does have its flaws. MGM's insistence on elaborate musical numbers is clearly present. Spanky, playing a greedy caliph, wishes for some dancers to entertain him. Enter a group of over-rehearsed tap dancing children. Unlike MGM, Roach hated the types of children that didn't behaved more like adults. Such a musical number would have never worked in a Roach comedy. Another flaw is the needlessly large set. Much of the film takes place in the cellar of a home. What kind of a cellar has such tall ceilings? Yet another one of MGM's attempts at prettying up the series.

Still, enough charm is present to make it ''almost'' feel like a Roach comedy.

Hal Roach sold the OUR GANG series lock, stock and cow-lick to MGM (Roach's distributor) in May, 1938. The story goes he saw the death of the short subject upon the advent of the double feature--- but you have to wonder why he'd think this when major studios (one of RKO's very last releases was a short subject!) would continue to grind out 1-reelers into the mid-50's. His longtime distributor, MGM was owned by the largest theatrical chain in the world, Loew's Inc. Granted, part of the reason I think Roach became hooked on the idea after the success of Laurel & Hardy features, TOPPER (and it's two lesser sequels), 1-MILLION YEARS B.C. (the #1 film of 1940!), and his first class production of OF MICE AND MEN. His stab at an OUR GANG feature in 1936 with the ill-conceived GENERAL SPANKY was a notable failure... and after 15+ years in shorts production, he was looking for an excuse to move on. But there's more to the story folks! In the mid-1930's Roach had horrified MGM/Leow's Inc. by announcing plans to enter in a studio/production business with Benito Mussolini (Roach hosted Il Duce's son's 21st birthday bash in Hollywood) and quietly sought to end their relationship. Metro bought the profitable Our Gang series lock stock and barrel--- in retrospect a rather odd property. Unfortunately MGM could do almost anything well except comedy and OUR GANG would suffer mightily in the process. ALADDIN'S LANTERN is one of the few good all-around MGM entries, probably a direct result of the talented Gordon Douglas' direction--- he'd direct only two of the MGM versions before pulling up stakes and returning to Roach (who'd signed with United Artists as a producer in the interim). ALADDIN'S LANTERN is a throwback to the Roach 'the Gang puts on a show' stories and has a well done magic carpet sequence along with Porky & Buckwheat desperately trying to crash into the show. These later OUR GANG's typically have terrible scripts but have MGM production values. This is one of the better of the 51 MGM entries as scripts go. Unfortunately they became fewer and increasingly farther between.

Weak entry in the Our Gang films is like several other of the shorts where the gang decides to put on a show. The only real difference is that the budget is clearly bigger and the film looks slightly better.

The plot is that the gang put on the Aladdin tale complete with dancing girls, songs and monkeys. Its so familiar in the way its done that I'm left to wonder if the film uses stock footage from earlier films. Whats worse is that the songs and dancing derail the rest of the film since running a scant 10 minutes the film barely has time to build up any sort of momentum. The only way this is worth seeing it is if you stumble on it or see it as part of a collection.