Shivering Shakespeare

The early sound shorts in the Our Gang series were scattershot, quality-wise, depending on which director was handling the episode at hand. Full-time director Bob McGowan saw the new era through to its maturity. Other early sound-era episodes, like "When the Wind Blows" (L&H director James W. Hornes' one-shot Rascals short), and series co-director Anthony Mack's efforts (Mack was really Robert Anthony McGowan, nephew of Bob), were a few times good, but mostly misfires.

Mack was a semi-skilled director at best: the man just didn't latch onto how to pace and shape a film. But the present episode presents an ingenious compromise: being merely a semi-skilled director, Anthony Mack proves just about the ideal choice to direct an episode with this plot: the gradeschooler kids are supposed to be players in the cast of a small-town production of "Quo Vadis" which quickly becomes one big joke by means of forgotten lines, a harried and loud and pretentious schoolmarm, and an extended pie-throwing melee to cap things off. Norman "Chubby" Chaney shines in his attempt to be Nero, The result is an episode that cuts the mustard, at least in this reviewer's opinion. Some of the punchlines fail to come off, but a hearty good time generally.

A large, hilarious supporting cast help put this one over the edge.

I first saw this as a kid (THE LITTLE RASCALS first went on TV the year I was born) and fairly recently bought this on DVD. In between, I watched it on the occasions it was on and took careful notes at 1) the pie fight itself and 2) how racist some of these parts were: Farina as a Nubian slave, doing voodoo, for example. I think Roach and McGowan would have been beaten to death if they'd tried to do that now.

Notice how the pie fights in The Three Stooges' HALFWITS' HOLIDAY and IN THE SWEET PIE AND PIE resemble this one...and this film came out a few years before their initial contract with Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures. There was obviously some inspiration from SS and Laurel & Hardy's THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY for these films...remember, at that time, they all stole from the best, each other!!!

One more note: Laurel & Hardy buffs, that bake sale lady was none other than Dorothy Coburn, who also appeared in TBOTC-the 'flapper' getting into her car and getting it in the rear end. It always escapes me why she was never credited?

The Gang is involved in a really, really lame play. None of the kids know their lines and one mistake after another occurs. In addition to the kids, Officer Kennedy (Edgar Kennedy) is on hand--and he's just as untalented as the rest. Later, some mean kids in the audience begin throwing food at the actors as they put on the lamest version of "Quo Vadis" in history.

Aside from not being all that funny, this short suffers from relatively poor sound--which is made worse because the short is MUCH more talky than usual and there are no closed captions on the DVD. At the end, they had a giant pie fight (some of it in slow motion) but WHY they did this was never at all apparent. A limp short with little to recommend it.

I'm an Our Gang/Little Rascals fan, and I enjoy this episode immensely, I never tire of it. "Shivering Shakespeare" is about the kids acting in an adaptation of "Quo Vadis" made by Mrs Kennedy, who is conveniently hiding behind the curtains to help out the kids with the classic and a bit too complicated dialogue. The best thing about this episode is watching the kids act as kids; they have a natural grace that is fortunately not ruined by the fact that they are kid actors; you would say that they are just being themselves and practically unaware of the cameras.

Some of the best gags have Chubby as a protagonist -not having learned his dialogue well, he has taken notes on his robe, only to find out he's put on the robe inside out. There's also the gang of the kids who aren't in a play and have decided to turn it into a pie-throwing fest. 'Farina' is also at his best, scolding the teacher for "talking too much" when she's helping the kids with the forgotten dialogue. Very enjoyable is also Mary Ann Jackson, the leading lady, cheeky and adorable!

This installment was a disappointment. The dialogue suffers from very poor sound quality. Normally that wouldn't detract, but this episode is almost all talk. Some of the gags seem a bit corny even by 1930 standards. On the other hand, the performances are typically good. Chubby proves once again that he was one of the most wooden actors of his time-- which only adds to his appeal, of course. The pie fight sequence is the highlight of the film. I enjoyed the slow-motion shots, which must have been a bit experimental in their day. Definitely not the greatest "Our Gang" short.