Lazy Days

An OUR GANG Comedy Short.

It's LAZY DAYS for Farina, who is so tired laying in the shade that the least amount of effort is a bother to him. Only Fat Joe Cobb's plan to make money by entering the Gang's younger siblings in a baby contest can get Farina on his feet.

An amusing little film, with some good laughs. Chubby makes a unique 'baby', to say the least. Highlight: Farina washing his little brother, with help from a bee, frog & monkey.

This is the third Little Rascals sound film, and it is wonderfully whimsical and amusing. The cast has expanded for this one, both of children and of animals. The film opens with Farina lying prostrate with heat and laziness in a makeshift rocking chair in a small farmyard. He has acquired a friend, a little black girl from next door, whose name is Trellis, played by the six year-old actress Jannie Hoskins. She started appearing in films as a one year-old infant. She had appeared in 22 Little Rascals silent films before this, under three different names: Mango, Arnica, and Zuccini. (Her real life nickname was Zuchini, known in France and Britain as a courgette.) After this, she would appear in only one more Little Rascals film, six years later, TEACHER'S BEAU (1935), and then she would retire from the screen at the great age of 12. (She lived to be 72.) Here, she is rushing back and forth fetching things for the lazy Farina and tending to him as he keeps asking her to do things for him because he is too lazy to get up. Finally, when she refuses one thing, he drolly states: ' Then I ain't gonna marry you when I get big.' The animal cast includes a goat, a donkey, a cat, Pete the Dog (who rocks a baby in a cradle by running back and forth in an ingenious device), hens and chicks, a rooster prostrated with heat, and even a pet monkey belonging to a neighbour. Oh yes, and I must not forget to mention the most important zoological star of all in this film, a bee, whose main interest in life seems to be threatening to sting the Little Rascals. After the extended scenes between Farina and Trellis, we see Joe reading a circular for a 'grand baby contest', and he decides that he and the rest of the gang will take their baby brothers and sisters to enter the contest for Most Beautiful Baby, Fattest Baby, Biggest Baby, etc., and win lots of money for the prizes. However, there are not enough babies, so they fabricate two of them. Mary dresses up three year-old Wheezer as a baby, and Joe stuffs Chubby into large baby clothes to try for the prize of Fattest Baby. Off they go, pushing all their real and pretend babies in prams. Farina's pram collapses on the way and he goes to lie down in the shade of a large tree. He comforts himself by saying hat he would only have won a quarter (25 cents) anyway, then pulls one out of his pocket, and says: 'I've got a quarter anyway, and I'm too lazy even to spend this one.' Farina's baby brother, Thermos, is played by Junior Allen, who is a genuine infant in a cot. He never appears in any other film, so that this is the only time we see him. In preparing him for the contest, Farina had given him a bath in a zinc tub in the yard, fetching the water from a filthy duck pool. A frog appears in the tub and squirts water in Farina's face several times. As usual, the Little Rascals engage in complete childish anarchy. What fun! Robert F. McGowan directs, as always.

This early Our Gang talkie, the third one of its kind, features "Farina" and his pals down on the farm. It's a lazy day and Farina is so slow-motion that he even has another kid put a straw in his mouth so he can drink. At first, all the animals are lying around doing nothing, too, but eventually they get up and go for swim, or get something to eat,or play.....but "Farina" (Allen Hoskins) just likes there sounding like a young Stephin Fetchit, too "tired" to do anything.

Anyway, after about eight minutes, we finally see the rest of the gang, and things liven up. The kids discover a poster about a baby contest being held later that day with big prize money for the "biggest baby," "cutest baby," "strongest baby" all the way down to "homeliest baby." Wow, what mother wouldn't be proud of that? The kids decide to wash up the little ones, but they don't want any part of it so Chubby pretends, reluctantly, to be the baby. What happens in the contest, I'll leave up to you to see, but the ending is a surprise one.

Most of the gags in this 21-minute "movie" involve Farina. Some reminded me of sight-gags The Three Stooges used, such as a frog spitting a large spray of something in Curly's face. Here, Farina is the victim.

All in all, as other reviewers said here, this isn't one of the better Our Gang talkies, but it's worth one look.

"Lazy Days" is extremely difficult to watch, and I fancy myself an "Our Gang" fan, so that comment is not without consideration. The film is boring, with long stretches of unappealing visual gags and silence. The dialogue the kids say is lethargic and dull. Maybe I'm missing the point of the film, which is that this is a lazy day for the kids, but to me that doesn't equal entertainment.

Besides being boring, there is an air of manipulation that makes the film uncomfortable to watch. Farina's little brother doesn't like being undressed and drenched in a washbucket, and who could blame him? What's entertaining about seeing a little boy really cry his eyes out?

A dog from start to finish. 1 out of 10.

This was a slow moving short picture. The general theme is lazy days of summer, but the film just plods along. It was only okay. There were some scenes that should have changed that could have helped the film along. The crying baby was annoying and the director should have reassured the baby so that the child wouldn't be crying so much. I'm sure a parent was on the site so the dad or mom was likely there to have assisted. Farina got the most screen time and did okay with what he was given. All the kids just had to do was act out being tired in the hot summer day and it made you tired watching it. The contraption that the Farina family invented for rocking the baby, rocking Farina, fanning Farina and playing music was clever.

One part was fun to see. In the background of the last quarter of the film, the kids are out near a public area and fairly close to a regular gas station and street and you can see the traffic going by. It was nice to see all the old autos and trucks going about their business unawares as this was being filmed on the next block. That road is probably a big 6 lane road now.