Who Killed 'Doc' Robbin?

A gang of cute kids tries to right a wrong by sneaking into a gloomy mansion to find evidence that will exonerate an adult friend.

Looks almost like the 60-minutes was thrown together. It's like the producers thought they could just have the kids react to every spooky old house cliché and that would be enough. Unfortunately it's not. Basically the kids run hither, thither, and yon without plot or characterization. And when not just running around, there's freckle-face Speck (Belding) scrunching out a barely audible scream, again, again and again. All this may save on script, but it also gets tiresome. Meanwhile, movie vets like Grey, Mitchell, and the perennially sinister Zucco, get little more than a few lines and cameo appearances.,

Frankly, I liked Hal Roach's previous Our Gang attempt, Curley (1947), better. Too bad these attempts failed, but judging from Doc Robbin, the studio was pretty much at sea in knowing what a new formula might look like. After all, it's hard, if not impossible, to replace the likes of Spanky, Alfalfa, and Stymie.

I was utterly fascinated by this flick when I was a kid, probably in 1949 when I was 6 years old. I waited all my life to see it again and just happen to find a CD of it for one dollar at Wal-Mart. Well, let's be honest here, it's not all that great. If I were a film maker I would do a remake. A gorilla chasing kids in dark hall ways is pretty scary stuff. The one scene that stayed in my little mind, all these long years, was where all the kids were standing on the stairway holding candles. Of course that was what was used in the trailer. And as I remember the quality of the film was far, far greater than the CD that one can buy.

I had to see this film after reading a review here by some goof ball who went on and on about Hal Roach being racist! Firstly, Hal Roach stuck black kids in his films as friends and equals to white kids, beginning with the silent days! Were some of the scenes stereotypes? Yes, but back then everyone got a good does of stereotyping -- Italians, Jews, immigrants, blacks -- everyone got their fair share and no one seemed to mind, so which era was better? Aren't we tired of people just seeing everything by race and inserting there agenda into the mix? This is a curio piece from long ago. It's actually a cute little puff piece. The other reviewer said something about two black characters being named Did & Dat, but neglected to say that there was also a white character named Fixit. Jeeze. Get off the high horse. It's a movie.

Anyway the film is funny and keeps moving and tries to some extent to be a throw back to the Our Gang series that Roach was so successful at only by 1948, it wasn't gonna happen. Plus Roach Studios were already waning and soon would get into TV production, virtually abandoning theatrical films.

But watch it for what it is -- fun for the who family and a curio.

This movie has camp galore. As a child, I had no idea of the stereotypes that were used. I had no connection to the gorilla taking the black kid's clothes. None of it dawned on me that it was something racist. I loved this movie, because even as a child, the movie was awful and I loved it that it was awesomely bad. The terrible film grade, the horrible acting, the atrocious haircuts, the poor grammatical decisions, the ridiculous story line, the inane alibis, the stupor-inducing firing-chamber hunt...It made me laugh. It was 1948 when it was made, for crying out loud. Get over it that it was racist; so was America at that time, like it or not. Move forward. Enjoy it for what it is: a campy, corny kids' movie that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

This comic mystery was one of at least a couple of late 1940s efforts by Hal Roach to recapture the atmosphere and success of the "Our Gang" comedies of the past. It had most of the elements, but it never really comes together, and it does not come close to the original.

The setup has a gang of children, resembling the original group in a number of respects, getting involved in a murder mystery. Almost the entire movie takes place either in the courtroom or in the abandoned laboratory of an unstable doctor. These settings, and a far-fetched but interesting story idea involving atomic power, provide enough material for what could have been a good movie.

Though a couple of them show some talent, the child actors are clearly a cut below the members of the original gang, and they never work together with the same camaraderie or chemistry. It could simply be the case that by trying to put them too overtly into the same mold, they did not get the chance to be themselves. Except for George Zucco and, to a lesser extent, Virginia Grey, the adult actors are mostly just adequate as well.

On the plus side, the settings work most of the time. On the minus side, it has a surprising number of dated details and/or stereotypes that you cannot help noticing.

A fair amount of the action does work all right as light entertainment. It's the kind of format and plot setup that sometimes produces some very good movies when they are in the hands of a top-quality cast and crew. In this case, the results are at least watchable most of the time, and are occasionally enjoyable, but not enough so to make it of any general interest.