Boxing Gloves

"Boxing Gloves" was the third "Our Gang" talkie filmed, but the fourth to be released (following "Lazy Days.") The film marks the debut of Jackie Cooper in the Gang.

Farina and Harry are boxing promoters who have to result to promoting a fight between preschoolers Wheezer and Beezer to fill the card. While they would love to book a match between heavyweights Joe and Chubby, they've been pals for years. Farina and Harry convince the duo to fight, with very funny results.

"Boxing Gloves" is fun to watch, but it is a curiosity. The film, although billed as "All-Talking," is actually part silent/part talkie. There are long gaps during the the heavyweight fight that are entirely silent. Why the director filmed it this way is unknown. One idea I have for why this may have occurred is that sound equipment was extremely sensitive at this time, and the fear could have been that crowd noise could have damaged the equipment. It does seem that when the crowd is at their noisiest, the mikes go silent, so this well could have been the reason.

"Boxing Gloves" is fun, however, and enjoyable to watch. This was the earliest talkie syndicated by King World when "The Little Rascals" came to TV. 6 out of 10.

Another reviewer indicated that this was a curiosity, and it sure was! When I first watched "Boxing Gloves," I turned the sound way up on the tv, thinking that there might be something wrong with the soundtrack. The large stretches without sound during what surely would have been very noisy sequences are very unsettling...some clever director should make use of this technique! A very entertaining episode.

This is a fairly entertaining early sound Our Gang short. Both Joe and Chubby are easy to like in this one, as is the underrated and under appreciated Farina. Joe's face of anger as his hair gets messed up is priceless. The actual boxing sequence between the two "heavyweights" does contain a few nice chuckles. The film is more a sound "hybrid" as opposed to a full all-talking short. This is what hurts the film in the end. The audio track shows the ravages of time and there are long segments of complete silence that hampers the overall effect. Still, it's hard to find real fault with this or any of the Our Gang series but when stacked up against other shorts from the series, it's serviceable at best.

Boxing Gloves (1929)

*** (out of 4)

Fat Joe and Chubby agree not to fight over girls and that promise lasts a few seconds until one walks by wanting a soda. Farina sees them fighting and decides to put them in his boxing ring in order to make some money. This is the first of the sound Our Gang shorts that I really liked and this one here benefits from a nice screenplay as well as better technical qualities. It seems the quality of this early sound features finally went over well as there aren't any annoying glitches or performances due to the new technology and this makes for a more pleasant film. The screenplay here also has a narrative for the first time out of the first four shorts and it's a very good one. We get all sorts of nice and funny action with the two fat kids running around having their pants ripped and fighting. The boxing match contains plenty of laughs as the two kids think the other is going to fall down in the second round but the thing just keeps going. Jackie Cooper makes his first appearance here.

Our Gang made a very easy transition from silent to sound in 1929 with some of their best shorts being made in the early sound era. Our Gang made its "all-talking" debut in April 1929 with the three-reel "Small Talk". Note that this is before many of the larger studios went to sound, and yet the children are much more natural in their performances than their adult counterparts. That's because the theory behind Our Gang from the start was for the children to behave as naturally as possible.

The acting by these kids is terrific, but this is what is known as a part talkie, and if you don't know that you'll keep playing with the sound thinking something is wrong. It is not. Here the Gang goes outdoors for a boxing match between two rivals, and outdoors was a place early sound equipment could not easily follow. Thus when there are close ups of just a few kids talking, even outside, you have true synchronized sound. Sound effects are added at certain other points outside to give the illusion of truly synchronized sound. However, for the long shots of the boxing match itself with a crowd of the kids making noise, these scenes are silent film with no crowd sounds even dubbed over.

Realize this and just sit back and enjoy the short and I think you'll like it.