79-450: Practical Jokers is a 1938 Our Gang short comedy film directed by George Sidney . It was the 174th Our Gang short to be released. Hoping to get even for all the practical jokes perpetrated by neighborhood troublemaker Butch, the Gang plans to sabotage Butch's birthday party. The weapon of choice is a firecracker, which is substituted for one of the birthday candles. Unfortunately,
158-427: A screwball comedy that launched Cary Grant's unique screen persona, largely concocted by McCarey (Grant copied many of McCarey's mannerisms). Along with the similarity in their names, McCarey and Cary Grant shared a physical resemblance, making mimicking McCarey's intonations and expressions even easier for Grant. As writer/director Peter Bogdanovich notes, "After The Awful Truth , when it came to light comedy, there
237-553: A Best Actor Oscar. McCarey's share in the profits from this smash hit gave him the highest reported income in the U.S. for 1944, and its follow-up, The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), which paired Crosby with Ingrid Bergman and was made by McCarey's newly formed production company, was similarly successful. According to Paul Harrill in Great Directors , McCarey acknowledged that the film is largely based on his aunt, Sister Mary Benedict, who died of typhoid. McCarey testified as
316-643: A brief suspension in McFarland's work permit, Our Gang went into a four-month hiatus, during which the series was revised to a format similar to its original style and German-born Gus Meins was hired as the new series director. Hi-Neighbor! , released in March 1934, ended the hiatus and was the first series entry directed by Meins, a veteran of the once-competing Buster Brown short subject series. Gordon Douglas served as Meins's assistant director, and Fred Newmeyer alternated directorial duties with Meins for
395-725: A career in features (he returned in 1939 for two shorts, Cousin Wilbur and Dog Daze ). Our Gang was very successful during the 1920s and the early 1930s. However, by 1934, many movie theater owners were increasingly dropping two-reel (20-minute) comedies like Our Gang and the Laurel & Hardy series from their bills and running double feature programs instead. The Laurel & Hardy series went from film shorts to features exclusively in mid 1935. By 1936, Hal Roach began debating plans to discontinue Our Gang until Louis B. Mayer , head of Roach's distributor MGM, persuaded Roach to keep
474-590: A friendly witness early on in the hearings of the Un-American Activities Committee which was investigating Communist activity in Hollywood. The public reacted negatively to some of his films after World War II . For instance, his anti-communist film My Son John (1952) failed at the box office. But five years later, he co-wrote, produced, and directed An Affair to Remember . The film, starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr ,
553-412: A handful of shorts. Meins's Our Gang shorts were less improvisational than McGowan's and featured a heavier reliance on dialogue. McGowan returned two years later to direct his Our Gang swan song, Divot Diggers , released in 1936. Retaining McFarland, Matthew Beard, Tommy Bond, and Jerry Tucker, the revised series added Scotty Beckett , Wally Albright , and Billie Thomas , who soon began playing
632-445: A hobby on the side trying to write popular songs. While at Roach, McCarey, according to later interviews, cast Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy together and guided development of their onscreen characters, thus creating one of the most enduring comedy teams of all time. He only officially appeared as director of the duo's shorts We Faw Down (1928), Liberty (1929) and Wrong Again (1929), but wrote many screenplays and supervised
711-520: A kind of follow up to The Awful Truth with the same two stars, so it was turned over to Garson Kanin though McCarey worked on some of the editing. McCarey was a devout Roman Catholic and was deeply concerned with social issues. During the 1940s, his work became more serious and his politics more conservative. In 1944 he directed Going My Way , a story about an enterprising priest, the youthful Father Chuck O'Malley, played by Bing Crosby , for which he won his second Best Director Oscar and Crosby won
790-675: A male child — in Photoplay : "The honors go to a very young lady of color, billed as 'Little Farina.' Scarcely two years old, she goes through each set like a wee, sombre shadow." Daniels and Kornman were very popular and were often paired in Our Gang and a later teen version of the series called The Boy Friends , which Roach produced from 1930 to 1932. Other early Our Gang children were Eugene Jackson as Pineapple, Scooter Lowry , Andy Samuel , Johnny Downs , Winston and Weston Doty , and Jay R. Smith . After Ernie, Mickey and Mary left
869-517: A monkey, and so forth. One early Our Gang short, Lodge Night (1924), revolves around the kids forming a parody club based on the Ku Klux Klan (though the Black children are still allowed to join). In their adult years, actors Morrison, Beard, and Thomas defended the series, arguing that the white characters in the series were similarly stereotyped: the "freckle-faced kid", the "fat kid",
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#1732783874605948-468: A new distribution deal with to United Artists and left the short-subjects business. The final Roach-produced short in the Our Gang series, Hide and Shriek , was his final short-subject production. The Little Ranger was the first Our Gang short to be produced in-house at MGM. Gordon Douglas was loaned out from Hal Roach Studios to direct The Little Ranger and another early MGM short, Aladdin's Lantern , while MGM hired newcomer George Sidney as
1027-408: A separate interview, Ernie Morrison stated, "When it came to race, Hal Roach was color-blind ." Despite the stereotyping and racial gags, Our Gang's integrated cast caused it to be disliked by certain theater owners in the southern United States. Early in the existence of Our Gang , these theater owners complained to Pathé that Morrison and Hoskins had too much screen time and their prominence in
1106-480: A short-subject series which was essentially a teenaged version of Our Gang . Featuring Our Gang alumni Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman among its cast, The Boy Friends was produced for two years, with fifteen installments in total. Jackie Cooper left Our Gang in early 1931 just before another wave of cast changes: Farina Hoskins, Chubby Chaney, and Mary Ann Jackson all departed a few months afterward. Our Gang entered another transitional period, similar to that of
1185-493: A sports club. McCarey initially wrote gags for the Our Gang series and other studio stars, then produced and directed shorts, including two-reelers with Charley Chase . Chase would in fact become McCarey's mentor. Upon the comedian's death in 1940, McCarey was quoted as saying, "Whatever success I have had or may have, I owe to his help because he taught me all I know." The two men were especially compatible, as they both enjoyed
1264-692: Is Pups , became recognizable trademarks of Our Gang , Laurel and Hardy , and the other Roach series and films. Another 1930 short, Teacher's Pet , marked the first use of the Our Gang theme song , "Good Old Days" . Originally composed by Shield for use in Laurel & Hardy's first feature, Pardon Us , "Good Old Days," featuring a notable saxophone solo, served as the series' theme until 1938. Shield and Hatley's scores supported Our Gang's on-screen action regularly through 1934, after which series entries with background scores became less frequent. In 1930, Roach began production on The Boy Friends ,
1343-523: The "He-Man Woman Haters Club" from Hearts Are Thumps and Mail and Female (both 1937), the Laurel and Hardy-ish interaction between Alfalfa and Spanky, and the comic tag-along team of Porky and Buckwheat. Roach produced the final two-reel Our Gang short, a high-budget musical special entitled Our Gang Follies of 1938 , in 1937 as a parody of MGM's Broadway Melody of 1938 . In Follies of 1938 , Alfalfa, who aspires to be an opera singer, falls asleep and dreams that his old pal Spanky has become
1422-570: The Jim Crow era of racial segregation in the United States . The franchise began in 1922 as a silent short subject series produced by the Roach studio and released by Pathé Exchange . Roach changed distributors from Pathé to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1927, and the series entered its most popular period after converting to sound in 1929. Production continued at Roach until 1938, when
1501-417: The Jim Crow era, is notable for being one of the first in cinema history in which African Americans and White Americans were portrayed as equals. The five black child actors who held main roles in the series were Ernie Morrison , Eugene Jackson , Allen Hoskins , Matthew Beard and Billie Thomas . Ernie Morrison was, in fact, the first black actor signed to a long-term contract in Hollywood history and
1580-514: The Our Gang production unit was sold to MGM, where production continued until 1944. Across 220 short films and a feature-film spin-off, General Spanky , the Our Gang series featured more than 41 child actors as regular members of its cast. As MGM retained the rights to the Our Gang trademark after buying the series, the Roach-produced Our Gang sound films were re-released to theaters and syndicated for television under
1659-401: The "neighborhood bully", the "pretty blond girl", and the "mischievous toddler". In an interview on Tom Snyder 's The Tomorrow Show in 1974, Matthew Beard said of his time in the series that "I feel it was great. Some of the lines I had to say I didn't like, but I never look at it like that. I just try to look at it as mostly a fun thing. We were just a group of kids who were having fun." In
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#17327838746051738-479: The 1930s, McCarey turned towards producing more socially conscious and overtly religious films during the 1940s, ultimately finding success and acclaim in both genres. McCarey was one of the most popular and established comedy directors of the pre-World War II era. Born in Los Angeles, California , McCarey attended St. Joseph's Catholic School and Los Angeles High School. His father was Thomas J. McCarey , whom
1817-526: The Flag, Boys! (1958), a comedy starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward . His last picture was the poorly received Satan Never Sleeps (1962), which, like My Son John , was a stern critique of Communism . Auteurist critic Andrew Sarris has said that McCarey "represents a principle of improvisation in the history of the American film." Through most of his career, McCarey's filming method, rooted in
1896-532: The Los Angeles Times called "the greatest fight promoter in the world." Leo McCarey would later make a boxing comedy with Harold Lloyd called The Milky Way (1936). McCarey graduated from the University of Southern California law school and besides the law tried mining, boxing, and songwriting before becoming an assistant director to Tod Browning in 1919. It was McCarey's boyhood friend,
1975-459: The Mule. Roach's distributor Pathé released One Terrible Day , the fourth short produced for the series, as the first Our Gang short on September 10, 1922; the pilot Our Gang was not released until November 5. The Our Gang series was a success from the start, with the children's naturalism, the funny animal actors, and McGowan's direction making a successful combination. The shorts did well at
2054-492: The action, with each film often incorporating a moral, a civics lesson, or a patriotic theme. The series was given a permanent setting in the fictitious town of Greenpoint, and the mayhem caused by the Our Gang kids was toned down significantly. Exhibitors noticed the drop in quality, and often complained that the series was slipping. When six of the 13 shorts released between 1942 and 1943 sustained losses rather than turning profits, MGM discontinued Our Gang . The final short
2133-471: The actor and future fellow director David Butler , who referred him to Browning. Browning convinced McCarey, despite his photogenic looks, to work on the creative side as a writer rather than as an actor. McCarey then honed his skills at the Hal Roach Studios . Roach had hired him as a gagman in 1923, after McCarey had impressed him with his sense of humor, following a game of handball together at
2212-408: The adventures of a black boy called "Sunshine Sammy", played by Ernie Morrison . Theater owners then were wary of booking shorts focused on a black boy, and the series ended after just one entry, The Pickaninny , was produced. Morrison's "Sunshine Sammy" instead became one of the foci of the new Our Gang series. Under the supervision of Charley Chase , work began on the first two-reel shorts in
2291-522: The bookworm Waldo. Tommy Bond , an off-and-on member of the gang since 1932, returned to the series as Butch beginning with the 1937 short Glove Taps . Sidney Kibrick , the younger brother of Leonard Kibrick, played Butch's crony, Woim. Glove Taps also featured the first appearance of Darwood Kaye as the bespectacled, foppish Waldo. In later shorts, both Butch and Waldo were portrayed as Alfalfa's rivals in his pursuit of Darla's affections. Other popular elements in these mid-to-late-1930s shorts include
2370-507: The box office, and by the end of the decade the Our Gang children were pictured on numerous product endorsements. The biggest Our Gang stars then were Ernie Morrison as Sunshine Sammy, Mickey Daniels, Mary Kornman, and Allen Hoskins as little Farina, who eventually became the most popular member of the 1920s gang and the most popular black child star of the 1920s. A reviewer wrote of the Farina character — depicted as female though played by
2449-420: The cast: Chaney replaced Joe Cobb , Beard replaced Allen Hoskins ("Farina"), and Thomas replaced Beard. Even when there was no talent search, the studio was bombarded by requests from parents who were sure their children were perfect for the series. Among them were the future child stars Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple , neither of whom made it past the audition. The Our Gang series, produced during
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2528-505: The chance to have his films packaged with MGM features to the Loews Theatres chain. Some shorts around this time, particularly Spook Spoofing (1928, one of only two three-reelers in the Our Gang canon), contained extended scenes of the gang tormenting and teasing Farina, scenes which helped spur the claims of racism, which many other shorts did not warrant. These shorts marked the departure of Jackie Condon , who had been with
2607-499: The character of Stymie's sister "Buckwheat", though Thomas was a male. Semi-regular actors, such as Jackie Lynn Taylor , Marianne Edwards , and Leonard Kibrick as the neighborhood bully, joined the series at this time. Tommy Bond and Wally Albright left in the middle of 1934; Jackie Lynn Taylor and Marianne Edwards would depart by 1935. Early in 1935, new cast members Carl Switzer and his brother Harold joined Our Gang after impressing Roach with an impromptu musical performance at
2686-418: The children and was a box office disappointment. No further Our Gang features were made. After years of gradual cast changes, the troupe standardized in 1936 with the move to one-reel shorts. Most casual fans of Our Gang are particularly familiar with the 1936–1939 incarnation of the cast: Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Buckwheat, and Porky, with recurring characters such as neighborhood bullies Butch and Woim and
2765-434: The children were poor, and the gang was often at odds with snobbish "rich kids", officious adults, parents, and other such adversaries. Senior director Robert F. McGowan helmed most of the Our Gang shorts until 1933, assisted by his nephew Anthony Mack . McGowan worked to develop a style that allowed the children to be as natural as possible, downplaying the importance of the filmmaking equipment. Scripts were written for
2844-511: The clearance to produce an Our Gang feature film, General Spanky , hoping that he might move the series to features as was done with Laurel & Hardy. Directed by Gordon Douglas and Fred Newmeyer, General Spanky featured characters Spanky, Buckwheat, and Alfalfa in a sentimental, Shirley Temple-esque story set during the American Civil War . The film focused more on the adult leads ( Phillips Holmes and Rosina Lawrence ) than
2923-679: The direction by others. By 1929, he was vice-president of production for the studio. Less well known from this period are the shorts he directed with Max Davidson when Roach put together the Irish-American McCarey with the Jewish-American actor for a series of "dialect comedies." They have been rediscovered in recent years, after their exhibition in 1994 at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone Italy. In
3002-486: The end of 1941, Darla Hood had departed from the series, and Spanky McFarland followed her within a year. Billie Thomas as Buckwheat remained in the cast until the end of the series as the sole holdover from the Roach era. Overall, the Our Gang films produced by MGM were not as well-received as the Roach-produced shorts had been, largely due to MGM's inexperience with the brand of slapstick comedy that Our Gang
3081-434: The end of the 1920s, McGowan modified his approach slightly, but scripts were not adhered to until McGowan left the series. Later Our Gang directors, such as Gus Meins and Gordon Douglas , streamlined the approach to McGowan's methods to meet the demands of the increasingly sophisticated movie industry of the mid-to-late 1930s. Douglas, in particular, had to streamline his films, as he directed Our Gang after Roach halved
3160-407: The exception of Ernie Morrison, who was already under contract to Roach. The other Our Gang recruits included Roach photographer Gene Kornman's daughter Mary Kornman , their friends' son Mickey Daniels , and family friends Allen Hoskins , Jack Davis , Jackie Condon , and Joe Cobb . Most early shorts were filmed outdoors and on location and featured a menagerie of animal characters, such as Dinah
3239-407: The expressions "Okey-dokey!" and "Okey-doke!" Dickie Moore , a veteran child actor, joined in the middle of 1932 and remained with the series for one year. Other members in these years included Mary Ann Jackson's brother Dickie Jackson, John "Uh-huh" Collum , and Tommy Bond . Upon Dickie Moore's departure in mid 1933, long-term Our Gang members such as Wheezer (who had been with Our Gang since
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3318-532: The first major black star in Hollywood history. The African-American characters have often been criticized as racial stereotypes. The Black children spoke (or were indicated as speaking via text titles in the case of the silent entries) in a stereotypical " Negro dialect ", and several controversial gags revolved directly around their skin color: Matthew Beard's Stymie character sweating jet-black ink, Billie Thomas's Buckwheat character being given fake "white measles " instead of dark ones and supposedly turned into
3397-549: The gang as Spanky late in 1931 at the age of three and remained an Our Gang actor for eleven years, except for a brief break in summer 1938. At first appearing as the tag-along toddler of the group, and later finding an accomplice in Scotty Beckett in 1934, Spanky quickly became Our Gang ' s biggest child star. He won parts in a number of outside features, appeared in many of the now-numerous Our Gang product endorsements and spin-off merchandise items, and popularized
3476-492: The gang to fully adjust to talking pictures, during which time they lost Joe Cobb, Jean Darling and Harry Spear and added Norman Chaney , Dorothy DeBorba , Matthew "Stymie" Beard , Donald Haines and Jackie Cooper . Cooper proved to be the personality the series had been missing since Mickey Daniels left and was featured prominently in three 1930/1931 Our Gang films: Teacher's Pet , School's Out , and Love Business . These three shorts explored Jackie Cooper's crush on
3555-458: The group from the beginning of the series. Starting in 1928, Our Gang comedies were distributed with phonographic discs that contained synchronized music-and-sound-effect tracks for the shorts. In spring 1929, the Roach sound stages were converted for sound recording, and Our Gang made its " all-talking " debut in April 1929 with the 25-minute film Small Talk . It took a year for McGowan and
3634-490: The kids in general and Alfalfa in particular are unable to escape from the party before the big (and tasty) explosion. This article related to a short comedy film is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Our Gang Our Gang (also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals ) is an American series of comedy short films chronicling a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by film producer Hal Roach , also
3713-476: The late Pathé silents period) and Dorothy left the series as well. Robert McGowan, burned out from the stress of working with the child actors, had as early as 1931 tried to resign as producer/director of Our Gang . Lacking a replacement, Hal Roach persuaded him to stay on for another year. At the start of the 1933–34 season, the Our Gang series format was significantly altered to accommodate McGowan and persuade him to stay another year. The first two entries of
3792-407: The lumberyard to play with, but the smallest child had the biggest stick, and the others were trying to force him to give it to the biggest child. After realizing that he had been watching the children bicker for 15 minutes, Roach thought a short film series about children just being themselves might be a success. Our Gang also had its roots in an aborted Roach short-subject series revolving around
3871-448: The management at MGM and its parent company, Loews Inc. , which elected to end MGM's partnership with Roach. However, MGM did not want Our Gang discontinued and agreed to take over production. On May 31, 1938, Roach sold MGM the Our Gang unit, including the rights to the name and the contracts for the actors and writers, for $ 25,000 (equal to $ 541,135 today). After delivering the Laurel and Hardy feature Block-Heads , Roach started
3950-509: The mid-1920s. Matthew Beard, Wheezer Hutchins, and Dorothy DeBorba carried the series during this period, aided by Sherwood Bailey and Kendall McComas , who would play Breezy Brisbane. Unlike the mid-1920s period, McGowan sustained the quality of the series with the help of the several regular cast members and the Roach writing staff. Many of these shorts include early appearances of Jerry Tucker and Wally Albright , who later became series regulars. New Roach discovery George McFarland joined
4029-441: The new "kids-and-pets" series, to be called Hal Roach's Rascals , later that year. Director Fred C. Newmeyer helmed the first pilot film, entitled Our Gang , but Roach scrapped Newmeyer's work and had former fireman Robert F. McGowan reshoot the short. Roach tested it at several theaters around Hollywood. The attendees were very receptive, and the press clamored for "lots more of those 'Our Gang' comedies." The colloquial usage of
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#17327838746054108-491: The new schoolteacher Miss Crabtree, played by June Marlowe . Cooper soon won the lead role in Paramount 's feature film Skippy , and Roach sold his contract to MGM in 1931. Other Our Gang members appearing in the early sound shorts included Buddy McDonald , Clifton Young , and Shirley Jean Rickert . Many also appeared in a group cameo appearance in the all-star comedy short The Stolen Jools (1931). Beginning with
4187-561: The permanent series director. Our Gang would be used by MGM as a training ground for future feature directors: Sidney, Edward Cahn and Cy Endfield all worked on Our Gang before moving on to features. Another director, Herbert Glazer, remained a second-unit director outside of his work on the series. Nearly all of the 52 MGM-produced Our Gangs were written by former Roach director Hal Law and former junior director Robert A. McGowan (also known as Anthony Mack, nephew of former senior Our Gang director Robert F. McGowan). Robert A. McGowan
4266-501: The popular series in production. Roach agreed, producing shorter, one-reel Our Gang comedies (ten minutes in length instead of twenty). The first one-reel Our Gang short, Bored of Education (1936), marked the Our Gang directorial debut of former assistant director Gordon Douglas and won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (One Reel) in 1937. As part of the arrangement with MGM to continue Our Gang , Roach received
4345-528: The producer of the Laurel and Hardy films, Our Gang shorts were produced from 1922 to 1944, spanning the silent film and early sound film periods of American cinema . Our Gang is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way; Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular children, rather than have them imitate adult acting styles. The series also broke new ground by portraying white and black children interacting as equals during
4424-485: The rich owner of a swanky Broadway nightclub where Darla and Buckwheat perform, making "hundreds and thousands of dollars". As the profit margins continued to decline owing to double features, Roach could no longer afford to continue producing Our Gang . The lack of consistent success with Roach's concurrent program of feature output and an ultimately unsuccessful partnership with Vittorio Mussolini - son of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini - led to disagreements with
4503-531: The running times of the shorts from two reels (20 minutes) to one reel (10 minutes). As children aged out of their roles, they were replaced by new children, usually from the Los Angeles area. Eventually Our Gang talent scouting employed large-scale national contests in which thousands of children tried out for an open role. For example, Norman Chaney ("Chubby"), Matthew Beard ("Stymie"), and Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas all won contests to become members of
4582-529: The season in fall 1933, Bedtime Worries and Wild Poses (which featured a cameo by Laurel and Hardy), focused on Spanky and his hapless parents, portrayed by Gay Seabrook and Emerson Treacy , in a family-oriented situation comedy format similar to the style later popular on television . A smaller cast of Our Gang kids—Matthew Beard, Tommy Bond, Jerry Tucker, and Georgie Billings—were featured in supporting roles with reduced screen time. An unsatisfied McGowan abruptly left after Wild Poses . Coupled with
4661-512: The series in the mid-1920s, the Our Gang series entered a transitional period. The stress of directing child actors forced Robert McGowan to take doctor-mandated sabbaticals for exhaustion, leaving his nephew Robert A. McGowan (credited as Anthony Mack) to direct many shorts in this period. The Mack-directed shorts are considered among the lesser entries in the series. New faces included Bobby Hutchins as Wheezer, Harry Spear , Jean Darling and Mary Ann Jackson , while stalwart Farina served as
4740-488: The series with varying levels of stereotyping. According to Roach, the idea for Our Gang came to him in 1921, when he was auditioning a child actress to appear in a film. The girl was, in his opinion, overly made up and overly rehearsed, and Roach waited for the audition to be over. After the girl and her mother left the office, Roach looked out of his window to a lumberyard across the street, where he saw some children having an argument. The children had all taken sticks from
4819-645: The series' anchor. Also at this time, the Our Gang cast acquired an American Pit Bull Terrier with a ring around one eye, originally named Pansy but soon known as Pete the Pup , the most famous Our Gang pet. In 1927, Roach ended his distribution arrangement with the Pathé company. He signed on to release future products through the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , which released its first Our Gang comedy in September 1927. The move to MGM offered Roach larger budgets and
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#17327838746054898-608: The set. French director Jean Renoir once paid the great tribute of saying that "Leo McCarey understood people better than any other Hollywood director." Leo McCarey died on July 5, 1969, aged 70, from emphysema . He was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California . His younger brother, director Ray McCarey , had died 21 years earlier. In 1978, Leo McCarey's production records, including scripts, budgets and correspondence were donated to
4977-591: The short When the Wind Blows , in 1930 background music scores were added to the soundtracks of most of the Our Gang films. Initially, the music consisted of orchestral versions of then-popular tunes. Marvin Hatley had served as the music director of Hal Roach Studios since 1929, and RCA employee Leroy Shield joined the company as a part-time musical director in mid-1930. Hatley and Shield's jazz -influenced scores, first featured in Our Gang with 1930s Pups
5056-483: The shorts by the Hal Roach comedy writing staff, which included at various times Leo McCarey , Frank Capra , Walter Lantz , and Frank Tashlin , among others. The children, some too young to read, rarely saw the scripts; instead, McGowan would explain the scene to be filmed to each child immediately before it was shot, directing the children using a megaphone and encouraging improvisation . When sound came in at
5135-526: The shorts would offend white audiences. A later Our Gang spin-off film, Curley (1947), was banned by the Memphis, Tennessee censor board for showing black and white children in school together, a characteristic common to even the earlier shorts. Other minorities, including Asian Americans Sing Joy, Allen Tong (also known as Alan Dong), and Edward Soo Hoo, as well as Italian-American actor Mickey Gubitosi (later known as Robert Blake ), were depicted in
5214-405: The silents, was to drastically alter the story ideas, bits of business, and dialogue in the scripts previously provided to the studios and the actors. He would usually sit at a piano and doodle as the sometimes exasperated crew waited for inspiration. As Bing Crosby said about Going My Way : "I think probably 75 per cent of each day's shooting was made up on the set by Leo." While this technique
5293-589: The sound era, McCarey focused on feature-film direction, working with many of the biggest stars of the era, including Gloria Swanson ( Indiscreet , 1931 ), Eddie Cantor ( The Kid From Spain , 1932 ), the Marx Brothers ( Duck Soup , 1933 ), W.C. Fields ( Six of a Kind , 1934 ), and Mae West ( Belle of the Nineties , 1934). A series of six films at Paramount came to a crashing halt with his production of Make Way for Tomorrow in 1937. While
5372-915: The story of an elderly couple who have to be separated for economic and family reasons during the Depression was not without humor in its treatment, the results were too unpopular at the box office and the director was let go. Nonetheless the film was recognized early on for its importance by being selected for the permanent collection of the recently formed Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In later years it became canonical, and even considered by some as McCarey's masterpiece, due to perceptive champions such as Bertrand Tavernier , Charles Silver and Robin Wood . Later in 1937, invited to Columbia, McCarey earned his first Academy Award for Best Director for The Awful Truth , with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant ,
5451-460: The studio commissary. While Harold would eventually be relegated to the role of a background player, Carl, nicknamed "Alfalfa", eventually replaced Scotty Beckett as Spanky's sidekick. Matthew Beard as Stymie left the cast soon after, and the Buckwheat character morphed subtly into a male. That same year, Darla Hood , Patsy May, and Eugene Lee as Porky joined the gang. Scotty Beckett departed for
5530-512: The television distribution rights to the 1929–1938 Roach-era shorts for broadcast and cable. Meanwhile, MGM's Our Gang series (1938–1944) is currently owned by Warner Bros. through Turner Entertainment Co. . New productions based on the shorts have been made over the years, including the 1994 feature film The Little Rascals , released by Universal Pictures . Unlike many motion pictures featuring children and based in fantasy , producer/creator Hal Roach rooted Our Gang in real life: most of
5609-439: The term Our Gang led to its becoming the series' second (yet more popular) official title, with the title cards reading " Our Gang Comedies: Hal Roach presents His Rascals in..." The series was officially called both Our Gang and Hal Roach's Rascals until 1932, when Our Gang became the sole title of the series. The first cast of Our Gang was recruited primarily of children recommended to Roach by studio employees, with
5688-492: The title The Little Rascals . The Roach-produced Little Rascals shorts (1929–1938) are currently owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (through Halcyon Studios ), which manages the copyrights as well as theatrical and home video and streaming releases; the entries produced between 1922 and 1929 are in the public domain in the United States. Paramount Global (through King World Productions ) owns
5767-533: Was Dancing Romeo , which was released on April 29, 1944 (as an MGM Miniature, not an Our Gang comedy). Leo McCarey Thomas Leo McCarey (October 3, 1898 – July 5, 1969) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was involved in nearly 200 films, including the critically acclaimed Duck Soup , Make Way for Tomorrow , The Awful Truth , Going My Way , The Bells of St. Mary's , My Son John and An Affair to Remember . While focusing mainly on screwball comedies during
5846-428: Was Cary Grant and then everyone else was an also-ran." After the success of The Awful Truth McCarey could have become, like Frank Capra , a Columbia contract director with a certain independence. Instead, he went his own way, selling the story that would become The Cowboy And The Lady to Sam Goldwyn and then moving to RKO for three films. A car accident in 1940 prevented him from directing My Favorite Wife,
5925-489: Was a remake (with precisely the same script) of his 1939 film Love Affair with Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer . In 1993, the hugely popular romantic comedy film Sleepless In Seattle by Nora Ephron made such frequent references to An Affair To Remember that it gave the older film a whole new lease on life in revivals, cable TV, and video, with the result that it is probably McCarey's most popular and easily accessible film today. He followed this hit with Rally Round
6004-400: Was credited for these shorts as "Robert McGowan"; as a result, moviegoers have been confused for decades about whether this Robert McGowan and the senior director of the same name at Roach were two separate people. The last few of the Roach comedies featured Alfalfa Switzer as the lead character; Spanky McFarland had departed from the series just before its sale to MGM. Casting his replacement
6083-405: Was delayed until after the move to MGM, at which point MGM rehired McFarland. In 1939, Mickey Gubitosi (later known by the stage name of Robert Blake ) replaced Eugene "Porky" Lee, who had matured too quickly. Tommy Bond, Darwood Kaye, and Alfalfa Switzer all left the series in 1940, and Billy "Froggy" Laughlin (with his Popeye -esque trick voice) and Janet Burston were added to the cast. By
6162-411: Was famous for, and to MGM's insistence on keeping Alfalfa, Spanky, and Buckwheat in the series as they became teens. The MGM entries are considered by many film historians, and the Our Gang children themselves, to be lesser films than the Roach entries. The children's performances were criticized as stilted and stiff, their dialogue being recited instead of spoken naturally. Adult situations often drove
6241-412: Was responsible for a certain awkwardness and some rough edges in the finished works, many of McCarey's scenes had a freshness and spontaneity lacking in the typical mainstream Hollywood cinema. He was not the only director of his time to work this way: fellow comedy directors Gregory La Cava , Howard Hawks and George Stevens – the last also a Roach graduate – were known for their use of improvisation on
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