Mokey

My name is Jim Gallaher, and interestingly enough, Mokey was my father. His aunt was a writer during the thirties and wrote a book called 'Mokey' that was also published in installment form in Colliers Magazine. I'm not sure of the spelling of Colliers Magazine, but I know it was a popular magazine that was the size of Life Magazine... but had more of a story and article format. I actually have the original book 'Mokey'.

I agree that the movie was not that good, but I enjoyed it because of my father's legacy. His name was Dennis Gallaher (he was a chiropractor in a small town, called Parker Arizona, and passed away in 1968). Actually, my father told me some of the stories as I grew up before I saw the movie (which was in 2003) or read the book. He was a problem kid and the family ended up sending him to military school.

His father (my grandfather), Harry Gallaher, was a chiropractor in Oklahoma and was involved with regional politics as a supporter and associate of Huey Long. Because of these activities my grandfather Harry Gallaher spent considerable time away from home... which led to a son (my dad, Mokey) who got into trouble partially due to lack of having his father around. My dad said he had a lot of trouble with his step mother and did not like his upbringing from her.

He ran away more than once, sometimes traveling as far a Louisana to reunite with his father who was hanging out with his political cronies. My father picked up a Cajun accent as a result of playing with the children he met from his sojourns to that area.

In another run-away incident, my father told me that he was walking down a country road and met a black family selling produce at a road stand. He was asked what his name was and he said it was Jimmy. He said that's what they called him from that day on. He said they took him in and he ended up being part of their family for a while. I, being my father's only son, was named Jimmy (James,really) in honor of this time in his life. I don't know anything about him being made up to look like a black kid except what I saw in the movie. I don't think it happened.

Even though my father was from a southern family with the typical prejudices, I was taught respect for black people and the N word or other kinds of negative words or ideas were never used in my family. I believe that the experience he had with the black family changed the southern-attitude upbringing he'd had and influenced the attitudes he taught his own family as well.

As is true of all art interpreting life, the movie was not a true depiction of what his childhood was... and neither was the book, for that matter. But much of the movie and book was based on true events.

By the way, my childhood dog was named Mokey and so is our family dog today.. but its spelled Moki.

I'd be interested in any comments from others.

MOKEY (1942) is a low-budget MGM melodrama set in a poor southern town where blacks and whites live in close proximity. Young Mokey (eight-year-old Robert Blake, a member of the "Our Gang" cast at the time) lives in a small but fairly comfortable house while his three closest friends, black siblings (two boys and one girl), live in a much more ramshackle place a short distance away. Mokey's guardian is a black maid (Etta McDaniel), who doesn't have much patience with Mokey and leaves the job when Mokey's dad remarries. (She later comes back temporarily.) The three black children (played by Cordell Hickman, William "Buckwheat" Thomas, and Marcella Moreland) live with an older woman, Aunt Deedy (Cleo Desmond), who is not their "blood kin." When Aunt Deedy gets sick she calls in a traditional healer, a "conjure woman" played by veteran black actress Madame Sul-Te-Wan (who was in D.W. Griffith's BIRTH OF A NATION). There are a total of seven black speaking parts, four of them quite substantial. A middle section of the film has Mokey running away from home and living with the black children as their cousin "Julius." They do him up in blackface and give him a cap to cover his straight hair. It fools Aunt Deedy—for more than three weeks! She doesn't bathe him or check his hair the whole time. The town searches high and low for Mokey but three weeks go by before Mokey's father (Dan Dailey) thinks to question Mokey's black friends about his whereabouts, which gives some idea of how invisible the black population was despite being so close. Along similar lines, we witness some disapproval on the part of Mokey's new stepmother (Donna Reed) after Mokey has introduced his three black playmates to her. When she later asks Mokey if he has any friends and he replies that she's already met them, she then asks, "But don't you have any other friends?," clearly implying that those three aren't good enough for him.

The young black actors are quite good, especially Cordell Hickman, who was active in the 1940s and, in the performances of his I've seen, always carried himself with a certain dignity. (He's best known for playing the white protagonist's close companion in THE BISCUIT EATER, 1940.) The little girl, Begonia (Marcella Moreland, daughter of actor Mantan Moreland), is quite sassy and addresses Mokey and the other white playmates as "white boy," with more than a hint of condescension. William Thomas, better known as "Buckwheat," was Robert Blake's co-star in the "Our Gang" series. The black characters speak in southern dialect, sometimes a tad more exaggerated than necessary.

My point in laying out this detail is to call attention to the extent of the film's investment in black life. We often see black characters in subservient roles in films from the 1930s and '40s, but we don't often see their lives away from the white folks. Here we do and it's quite refreshing. There are other films like this I can cite, but I'd most like to single out the horse-racing melodrama, MARYLAND (1940), which has a whole subplot set in the segregated black society which supplied the workers for the horse industry in Maryland at the time. I've reviewed that film on IMDb and my review is the only one to cite this subplot.

When I read comments complaining about racial stereotypes in films like MOKEY, I can only think that the tendency towards political correctness wants to whitewash this country's history. Without these characters we wouldn't get to see these remarkable performances by black actors trying to inject humanity into the stereotypes. It's easy to dismiss stereotypes when you don't see these characters as human beings. Which begs the question of who's the most racist. The creators of these films who sought to include black people in them to a degree that was rare in that period or the politically correct critics of today? Isn't the film somewhat noteworthy for at least acknowledging the racism of that time and setting rather than denying it?

For the record, Jim Gallaher, the son of the man who was the basis for the Mokey character, reports in a review here that his father did indeed live with a black family under an assumed name when he'd run away and traveled far from home, but is doubtful that he ever wore blackface. I'm assuming that because Mokey stays so close to home after he's run away in the film, the screenwriter had to come up with a tactic that would plausibly delay his discovery by the townsfolk for a significant amount of time and the blackface gimmick was the only one that could work.

Other reviews have adequately addressed the problematic aspects of Mokey's character and the difficulties such a boy causes for otherwise well-meaning people, so I'll leave that subject to them.

A must see movie for classic movies fans, as well as fans of Debbie Reynolds, Robert "Bobby" Blake, Dan Dailey, or Sam McDaniel. Debbie Reynolds give an A+ performance. A rare treat to see Robert Blake, best known in my generation for his lead role in the "Baretta" television series, or as the movie star accused of murder, as a cute kid. I would give it a ten, if it weren't for the Negro stereotypes, that were a bit overdone, even for 1942, complete with the usual antics of Buckwheat. I'm sure this movie would have an overall higher rating, if it weren't for those stereotypes. But, if you keep an open mind, it is a real treat. Thanks to MGM for another great movie! By the way, Etta McDaniel also appears in this movie.

Mokie(Robert Blake - yes the "Barreta" guy) is an 8 year old kid who just can't seem to stay out of trouble. Mokey seem to want to foreshadow Robert Blake's later adult life as a troubled little kid who's Mom has died and new stepmom (Donna Reed) can't control him no matter how hard she tries. "Mokey" is an interlude between Blake's "Our Gang" appearances and also includes "Little Rascals" co-star "Buckwheat". It has some interesting scenes with Buckwheat and his friends which is unusual for its time. Mokey's Mom must ultimately decide how important this new marriage and her new step son are.

Mokey (MGM, 1942) Upon watching this movie many years ago, after viewing the trailer, I thought it was going to be a nice sweet family drama. However, I was very disappointed with the overall film. First of all, this movie from the same studio that produced such excellent family dramas as "Boystown", "Journey for Maragaret", and "Our Vines Have Tender Grapes". Not only were the production values excellent, but so were the scripts, and the actors starring in these films. I do not blame young Robert Blake, because he was only about 8 or 9 in this film, but the studio itself. If they were trying to make a star out of him, this was not the film. He could have benefited from a better script and cast. I do believe that given with the right direction, better cast, and even a good script, this film could have been right up there with the aforementioned films. Lastly, the racial overtones of the film were ridiculous, I understand it was made during a racist period of America, but that could have been left out of the script and the film altogether.