Mary, Queen of Tots

A great example of early, silent Rascals. Little lonely rich girl, Mary, gets a gift of four dolls. There's an amazing dream sequence where the dolls come to life and romp around Mary's bedroom-- these are some of the best special effects I've seen from the '20s. Mary must somehow retrieve the dolls after they are taken away by her evil governess. A four-year-old Farina steals the show in a hilarious scene with a collapsible top hat.

Mary is a poor little rich girl. The gardener is her only friend. Her busy parents leave her mostly to her strict governess. After a mud pie debacle, the governess sends her to her room. The gardener brings her four dolls which a couple had made modeled after the neighborhood kids. The dolls have their playtime in her room. Her governess throws away her dolls. Mary runs out into the neighborhood to search for them and finds her dolls-turned-real.

It is the Our Gang kids. I love the Toy Story section. This could have been a total Toy Story short and that would have been great. Her mistaken assumption is funny. Farina's reactions are hilarious. It is just a fun short.

Mary Kornman, all of 10 years old, plays the title role in this really charming Our Gang short. She plays a precocious rich girl who is pretty much without friends. Her favorite person is the gardener. He gives her four dolls which are dolls of the members of Our Gang. After beginning to tell them a story, she falls asleep and they come to life. For the time, the special effects are very good. From there many things happen, but it all adds to up to a very charming film about friendship, wishes and hopes. Mary was only in films until age 25, and she was a beautiful girl and woman (she is in the later talkie "Fish Hooky") with Mickie Daniels, who is the freckle faced kid in this short. This is fun for all ages. Though its a silent film, kids will still like its imagery. Watch and enjoy.

Mary, Queen of Tots (1925)

*** (out of 4)

Charming Our Gang short has Mary playing a rich girl who isn't allowed to have any real friends of her own. The gardener makes her four dolls and bases their appearance on the neighborhood kids, which just happen to be the Our Gang group. Mary goes to sleep and dreams that the dolls come to life and when she wakes up she begins to think she's still dreaming as the dolls are still alive (but this time the real kids). MARY, QUEEN OF TOTS doesn't have a great number of laughs but at least the film has a lot of heart and imagination. The more of these Our Gang shorts I see I'm starting to realize that the best ones feature an imagination and that's clearly the most important thing. I thought the "dream" sequence was without question the highlight of the film because the Our Gang kids are shown as miniatures and I was shocked to see how well the special effects were. The larger sets look extremely believable and I can't help but feel the studio spent a few extra dollars. Some of the gags don't work too well including one with the kids being scared by the radio. Others work fairly well including a sequence where the kids keep slipping on a "magic" rug.

Like many of the Little Rascals silent films, the kids and their lives were not consistent. This isn't a complaint but an observation that in a couple films I've seen, one of the gang has inexplicably been very rich....whereas in almost all their other films they all come from poorer families. In one, Joe Cobb came from rich but neglectful parents and in this one, Mary has parents who are, again, rich but emotionally neglectful. Instead of raising her themselves, the parents have their own lives and leave Mary to a cruel governess...and the child is miserable. In fact, the only one who seems to care about the child is the gardener...which is pretty pathetic.

The sweet gardner is concerned about her and buys her a set of dolls...dolls that actually bear an amazing likeness to the Our Gang kids. Soon, Mary begins reading all sorts of stories of adventure, knights and the like...and imagines that the dolls come to life and share the adventures with her. This is pretty pathetic and instead of seeing the film as comedy, I am sure many will find it heartbreaking. Later, the dolls all come to life and they made this illusion by using HUGE sets with huge furniture...much like the Roach Studio later did with the Laurel & Hardy short, "Brats". You aren't sure if this is real...or perhaps a dream, as Mary snoozes as the dolls play about in her room. The effect is very striking, by the way...an excellent job by the film crew...and it must have been fun for the kids playing on such a set. And, it's worth seeing the short just for these incredible scenes. What's next? Well, the evil governess finds the dolls and tosses them in the trash!! What's next? See the film...but rest assured...the guilty will be punished and the shorts always have a happy ending.

So is this one any good? Well, it's pretty obvious if you've watched many of the silent Our Gang comedies that the answer is yes. Not only are the doll scenes incredibly well done, the ending is hilarious...so funny I won't mention it here