Shivering Spooks

There's not a lot of story or depth to "Shivering Spooks"...it's mostly just a chance to see the Gang run about in a kooky house filled with ghosts.

The story begins with an insane portion where a cop is shooting at a criminal and vice-versa...and Farina and Scooter are caught in the middle.

Soon the story switches to a phony psychic, Professor Fleece, who is about to put on a phony seance. But the kids playing ball outside interrupt this and the psychic chases them off. However, they go into a cave which leads back to this psychic's lair...and the psychic and his criminal sidekicks decide to scare the kids in order to teach them NEVER to come near the place again. What follows are folks wearing sheets to look like ghosts and various gadgets which make this look less like a lair and more like a carnival fun house.

There's just no depth to this one....it's mostly scared kids running about the place. Fun but not a lot of story here.

Shivering Spooks (1926)

*** (out of 4)

Fun our Gang short has the kids (minus Mickey Daniels) in their secret cave when the opening collapses on them and they must find another way out. At the end of the cave they manage to get into a room where a medium is performing a fake séance. Soon the bad guys are trying to get rid of the kids by using various haunting techniques. SHIVERING SPOOKS is perhaps one of the most controversial films in the series as there are many jokes aimed at Farina that most people are going to be offended by. The entire film has all the kids in peril but little Farina gets the most abuse including the kids forcing him to enter a certain place even though it could kill him. Another sequence has Mary telling him a story about ghosts and he asks why there aren't any black ones and she replies that you wouldn't be able to see them at night. Those familiar with these silent movies will know that in 1926 this type of humor is what people wanted so when viewing them with eyes today it's important to remember that this film was simply made in a different era. The rest of the film is actually pretty good as we get various laughs with the kids trying to avoid all the ghosts that keep stalking them. One running gag has Joe losing his pants with kids trying to hold onto him and this includes a rather cute sequence with him and Farina trying to get away from a ghost.

Overall, I'd say this is a pretty good silent Our Gang film.

Essentially, the gang stumbles into the lair of a crooked spiritualist aptly named Professor Fleece, who with his partners in crime try to scare the gang away. That sums up the plot without giving away the ending, but in spite of the slim storyline, a lot happens within these 20 minutes! The opening scene is rather shocking, as it seems that Farina and Scooter are running away form a man shooting point blank at them, but our horror quickly turns to relief and (depending on how sensitive you are) laugher when the camera reveals that we are not watching what we think.

Yes, there are a few unsettling scenes, such as the gang forcing Farina to enter a tunnel out of a cave by saying, "If you get killed, we know it ain't safe." (With friends like these...). However, the bit with the Klan-like ghost scaring Farina, who if you don't know by now was the series' Black star of the 20s, is neutralized by the fact that the phony ghost scares ALL of the children in the film. But the gag involving Farina turning white at the site of the ghost and the exchange with Mary Kornman about seeing "Colored ghosts" in the dark are relatively mild in comparison to some of the far cruder gags involving modern Black comedy (Chapelle's Show and Def Comedy Jam, anyone?) . The humor of the latter scene is clearly based on the innocence of children as opposed to mean-spiritedness (as was the case in some later Gang films as "Spook Spoofing" and the horribly cruel and unfunny "Glorious Fourth").

Yes, Allen "Farina" Hoskins has defended his work with the Gang/Rascals, but how much sensitivity and political correctness could one expect considering he was a small child when these films were made? As in many films of this period, he steals the show years before his tenth birthday! So yeah, the film shows its age and PC types will call their heart surgeons over some of the humor. But much of the film is undeniably amusing and as is the case with the Our Gang Rascals, the pros outweigh the cons.