Skippy

The little son of a doctor makes friends with a poor kid from shantytown.

First time viewing for me and I liked it very much. Jackie Cooper is great in the title role, so much that he got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The thing I liked most about this was how it shows what it is like to be a kid, especially in the early 1930s but still has some timeless quality. All the children in this film seem like real kids, not actors. It has a bit of Our Gang vibe to it, as in the scenes where the kids put on a show and sell lemonade. Cooper and Donald Haines were both members of Our Gang. Haines played a bully in this, just as he did in the Our Gang short The First Seven Years (1930) . Cooper and Haines appeared together in that one too.

Some interesting trivia is that Jackie Cooper was at the Oscar ceremony but fell asleep on Marie Dressler's arm, so he did not hear that he lost to Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul. Norman Taurog, the director did win for this. He was Cooper's uncle (by marriage). This became infamous years later when Cooper revealed that Taurog got him to cry by pretending he was going to shoot Jackie's dog. His crying scene here is heartrending.

This movie is a MUST for Jackie Cooper fans or for anyone who likes sentimental comedy/dramas of the early 1930s.

Paramount Pictures was one step from receivership until Mae West and Bing Crosby signed with them during the Depression. But this film I'm sure kept the wolf from the door for a little while. Skippy which is based on a popular comic strip of the day was the career role for little Jackie Cooper while he was a child star.

Cooper was one of the few child stars to have a real career in front of and behind the camera and it was a long one. He also played a wide range of characters. Yet when his name is mentioned today the first thing that comes to mind is the little kid with the knickers and somewhat pouty, but with a good heart and a set of values that he did not get from home completely.

Skippy is the child of town doctor Willard Robertson and Helen Bennett and he's a good kid at heart. But Robertson who's a fundamentally decent man doesn't want him playing with the kids on the other side of the railroad tracks. That's shantytown and there were plenty of them in America in 1931. Skippy is a film of its time although I'll bet that people who lived in those shantytowns did not part with the nickel needed to see Skippy, it was needed for important things like food.

Robertson as director of the board of health also wants to clean the place up. But with scant regard for the people who live there. So when Skippy makes friends with a slum kid who lives there played by Jackie Coogan's brother Robert and his mother Helen Jerome Eddy and their dog it turns out to be a turning point in everyone's lives.

With his decent, but thickheaded father and a mother oblivious to all except what's within the four walls of their home, Skippy grows up with an intuitive sense set of good values. It's what makes Jackie Cooper's character such an appealing one to this day.

Skippy brought home a Best Director Oscar for Norman Taurog and a few other nominations. Taurog gets it for some superb direction for a flock of kid players who are the ones carrying the film. It musn't have been easy, but the results are great.

Skippy is a film firmly within the Depression times it was made, but it has a universal family appeal to this day.

I couldn't quite give Skippy a 7. Close, but not quite. The film is like a Little Rascals episode only feature length, slightly more adult in atmosphere, and overall better written. One could look at Skippy as a glance back into what childhood looked like before the internet and really, before television. It isn't quite a perfect portrayal of those days, but it wouldn't be all that far off. Apparently, there is a companion piece, Sooky. If it should ever be shown on TCM, I'll make sure to see it. I say that as a nod to Skippy and its cast of kids, including Jackie Cooper, who 45 years later portrayed Clark Kent's boss, Perry White.

This constitutes one of the most surprising Oscar wins in history – the Best Direction nod for Taurog (reportedly, the youngest such recipient at the age of 32!) over heavyweights Lewis Milestone for THE FRONT PAGE (1931; who, by then i.e. the 4th ceremony, already had two statuettes to his name!) and Josef von Sternberg for MOROCCO (1930; the first of only two nominations for one of my dozen favourite auteurs!), both clearly superior films. Taurog was perhaps the epitome of the journeyman film- maker in Hollywood's Golden Age – showing a propensity for kiddie fare (such as SKIPPY and its unavailable inferior sequel made the same year, SOOKY, are), notably two BOYS' TOWN pictures (1938, for which he was also nominated, and 1941) and the Venice Film Festival winner(!) THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER (also 1938), and musical comedies (suffice it to say that he ended his career directing resistible vehicles for the likes of Jerry Lewis and Elvis Presley!).

Incidentally, SKIPPY was also seminal for having the first child performer to be nominated for acting (nine year-old Jackie Cooper, who happened to be Taurog's own nephew!): needless to say, the role made him a star…yet lasted just a few years at the top (though he formed a durable partnership with Wallace Beery) – not least because the market was subsequently flooded by other talented juveniles (Shirley Temple, Freddie Bartholomew, Mickey Rooney, Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland, etc.). For the record, SKIPPY (which I had previously acquired a low-quality copy of, but did manage to upgrade some time back) was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay (co-written by Norman Z. McLeod and Joseph L. Mankiewicz – both better-known as directors, though the latter would only move up the scale 15 years down the line).

Anyway, the film is a likable effort all round if hardly displaying outstanding merit at this juncture. Though a couple of them are overbearing (especially a girl with a penchant for yodeling!), the kids are practically the whole show here: apart from Cooper, easily the most effective is – the brother of famed child actor and later "Uncle Fester" incarnation Jackie – Robert Coogan (playing Sooky and actually top- billed during the opening credits, but rightfully listed below the protagonist when these are picked up at the coda!). Even cuter are the mongrels involved (which Sooky reasons are thus more "thoroughbred" than any pure breed!), around which the narrative partly revolves. The grown- ups are generally tyrannical (Skippy's health officer father – who intends demolishing the shantytown that is Sooky's home and to where his own boy frequently escapes), subservient (Cooper's mother) or just plain bullies (the local dog-catcher).

The latter picks up Sooky's unlicensed dog, so he and Skippy scrape for money to pay for one and retrieve the mutt – even going so far as to do the old "puttin'-on-a-show" routine before a hostile audience of friends – but they are still too late to save it! Sooky is understandably crushed, and Skippy – indirectly blaming his dad for authorizing the putting-down of stray animals – withdraws to his room; in reparation, the father buys him a bike, which he immediately trades for a dog to give Sooky…but, upon meeting him, discovers his pal has already filled the void (albeit with a bulldog)! The film offers drama and sentimentality galore, but also a few undeniable comic highlights – particularly the accidental repeated smashing of the dog-catcher's car windshield (the second time round by Skippy's own father!).

SKIPPY (1931) has nothing to do with the Childhood of a certain obnoxious and whining 'Sports Commentator' on ESPN, whose arm waving and mugging for the camera is reminiscent of Benito Mussolini. Nor is it directly related to a similarly named (but excellent) peanut butter. It is a heart warming film about Children and their simple but important life forming adventures.

The film centers around two (2) characters SKIPPY (Jackie Cooper) and his new found friend SOOKY (Robert Coogan). SKIPPY is from the right side of the tracks, SOOKY the wrong, Shanty Town, which SKIPPY finds far more interesting then his native haunts. Excellently directed by Norman Taurog, slighting neither the Child actors nor the Adult supporting cast, there is a fine morality lesson here showing the importance of friendship and loyalty, both in joyful times and in tragedy. It also shows the importance of parental understanding for Children's problems.

Norman Taurog won the Best Directing Oscar for his sensitive handling of what could have become maudlin. Sad to say this film is seldom seen today nor its sequel SOOKY (1931). The film is appropriate today for Parents to watch with their young Children ages four (4) to eight (8) for it still has lessons of value to teach. After those ages in the 21st Century they will be to bored or cynical to care and that's a shame.

Note for the Historical challenged, Mussolini (1883>1945) was a minor league Fascist dictator in the first half of the 20th Century. History has not been kind too his legacy. Nor will it be to his imitators, take note IL BAYLESS.

P.S. Rewatched today on TCM (02/22/2011) to see if our review holds up, IT DOES! So our only conclusion from the negative votes is that these must be from 'kiss-asses' to SKIPPY 'Peanut Butter For Brains' BAYLESS or sycophants of the ESPN (Eastern SeaBoard Propaganda Network)! Neither attributes flattering to those voters! As for the Peanut Butter SKIPPY. It is our favorite, low fat, extra crunchy.