One Terrible Day

This is the fourth in the silent 'Our Gang' series which was produced by Hal Roach and supervised by Charles Parrott. The question I have to ask myself is how much of an impact did these guys have on an English audience in the mid-1980's? Was this the reason why 80's children grew up liking all things American?

This is a rather charming and amusing little story of a rich lady who takes the original Our Gang kids to a picnic near a farm. Filled with the expected scenes of the gang making a mess of things, this film is also filled with charming moments. The rich lady's pet monkey is the source for a lot of good gags, but there are several moments where the "plot" (slim as it is) stops to linger on the gang playing with a spare tire, horsing around with the animals on the farm (including Farina's encounter with some geese), a quickly thwarted bullfight ("we Spaniards are Hot-blooded" says Mickey Daniels), and the gang gleefully throwing each other in a water fountain. These moments are not chock-full of knee-slapping guffaws, but they are wonderful to watch because they show the gang doing what kids SHOULD do- playing outdoors, using their imagination, and enjoying their childhoods. Too bad this is seldom seen or done today. This was the 4th Our Gang comedy made, but the first to be released to the public. Good choice.

Perhaps it's the poor video quality of the print that can be seen on Youtube, but there are many far better Our Gang films out there. H.M. Walker's titles are great, as usual, and the kids are fun to watch. Mickey Daniels exudes his usual enthusiasm, Jackie Condon is perfect as usual in the role of the unwanted tagalong, and Farina is cute as the toddler fascinated with geese. But there aren't many jokes here, just cute goings-on. Perhaps some frames are missing from the print I saw; the timing of many of the gags was thrown off by poor splicing (I'm sure that the original film was not edited so haphazardly). I'm just guessing, but my guess is that at this point, the producers knew they had struck gold, but hadn't quite figured out the best way to present these kids to the public.

This Hal Roach comedy short, One Terrible Day, is the fourth in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series. It's also the first to see general release. It couldn't have been a more suitable outing to start this classic comedy series with the public as it's the one of the first four that fully uses the kids as the source of trouble with their adult superiors, rich society types in particular. In this one, a society woman-in wanting to one-up a rival who had a nice time with her invited kids-ends up having Our Gang for a picnic. What could go wrong? Well, everything as she has to contend not only with them but a big dog, a monkey, and some stowaway kids who weren't invited. Oh, and wait till you see how they mess up the back yard with various geese, horses, a "bull", and the water fountain! I'll just say that this was quite an early hilarious outing for Our Gang with special mention going to Mickey Daniels, Ernie "Booker T. Bacon" Morrison, Jackie Condon, and Allen "Farina" Hoskins keeping one in stitches throughout. So on that note, I highly recommend One Terrible Day.

According to IMDB, while "One Terrible Day" was the fourth Our Gang comedy, it was the first one shown....meaning they most likely thought it was the best of these early comedies.

When the story begins, the snooty Mrs. Pennington Van Renssalaer decides to put on a picnic for the local children...not out of the goodness of her heart but as a publicity stunt. She is hoping to impress all her snobby friends by demonstrating (with LOTS of photos and publicity) her love of children. Unfortunately, she chooses the Our Gang kids...who bring along their pet dog and monkey and pretty much make nuisances of themselves.

Most everyone enjoys seeing snooty people getting their comeuppance...particularly when they are using poor kids in order to make themselves look charitable and kind. This and some nice, gentle laughs make this one an enjoyable film...worth seeing and often clever.

By the way, in the early Our Gang comedies, Farina's gender swaps a lot. In this one, everyone says he's a girl...whereas in others he plays a boy. Either way, at least when he got a bit older they stuck to one and not both!