School's Out

Jackie Cooper leads the Little Rascals troop in their efforts to derail what they mistakenly believe is their teacher Miss Crabapple's potential husband (Creighton Hale). A decent entry in the long-running Hal Roach series. The kids are cute - but June Marlowe as their beloved teacher is far, far cuter in all sorts of different ways.

This is a pretty adorable short featuring the Little Rascals and I'm not usually a fan of their films. This film is not among the earlier Rascals films (they were silents) and this was done well before Spanky and Alfalfa joined the group.

The breakout star among the kids was Jackie Cooper--who later went on to great stardom. However, I was surprised to see that although Farina played a very stereotypical Black child (in this film, talking about wanting to eat watermelon as well as the fact that his dad is in and out of jail--two awful stereotypes), he was actually the highest paid member of the group at the time according to IMDb--so I guess he had the last laugh! Also featured is "Chubby" Chaney--a very, very sad individual indeed. Although he was very, very obese and appeared to be about 8 or 9, he was actually 16 at the time this was made and died a few years later of some glandular condition!!

As for the plot, Jackie is concerned that now that summer vacation is approaching, their beloved teacher might not come back next year--since she's pretty and probably plans on getting married. About the same time, the teacher's brother is in town and the kids mistake him for her boyfriend and play some mean tricks on him to try to chase him away and keep her single! The whole routine is awfully funny and considering how cute the kids act, you can't help but like this film. Unlike many of the later films that had a lot of action, this one is slower paced but much higher on the charm scale.

This Hal Roach comedy short, School's Out, is the one hundred second in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" series and the fourteenth talkie. After the printed title of "Our Gang Comedies-Hal Roach presents His Rascals in School's Out" and Beverly and Betty Mae Crane mention the production credits, we see Jackie passing a petition to the rest of the gang to continue school for the summer as he's afraid Miss Crabtree-who he has a massive crush on-will get married like the previous teacher and leave her job. I'll stop there and just say that while there might be some uncomfortable stereotypical humor-Farina mentions looking forward to some watermelon, his dad is in jail, and the cover of a Minstrel joke book is shown-this was a mostly harmless and very funny short and it's almost as good as its predecessor, Teacher's Pet. Once again, June Marlowe is very charming as Miss Crabtree. So on that note, School's Out is highly recommended.

An OUR GANG Comedy Short

SCHOOL'S OUT for lunch when Miss Crabtree's brother comes looking for her. Mistaking him for a possible suitor, the Gang quickly develops plans to get rid of him...

A funny little film. Highlight: Question & Answer time. June Marlowe plays pretty Miss Crabtree and Creighton Hale appears as her brother Jack..

Watching this put me back to my long ago childhood. There were afternoon children's shows that used the Little Rascals as fillers, killing fifteen to twenty minutes. They reran the ones they had over and over. I have to say that they were gentle and funny, with neat characters. While there was a lot of racism in some of the comments, African American children were regulars. This one didn't use the more recognizable ones (especially Spanky and Alfalfa) and was more coarse. I enjoyed that. It probably portrayed the lives of little kids very well.