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« Last post by NoahYoung on April 20, 2024, 04:14:48 PM »
Watched BARNUM AND RINGLING last night. It was OK. Nothing special. Oliver Hardy has a cameo -- which I had already known about.
If it was made today, there would be an uproar over child endangerment and animal abuse. At one point, Jean Darling is hanging from a ceiling fan as it's spinning. You can see it's her -- not a rag doll. Plus, some of the "costumes" they put on the animals were probably uncomfortable for them -- like a balloon strapped to a goose's neck!
This short reminded me of PUPS IS PUPS when the animals run loose in the hotel.
My view on the silent Our Gangs is that, to me, they're way different than "The Little Rascals" talkies I know and love. The first talkie season, 1929/1930, is similar, but those are the worst of the Roach Our Gang talkies. Some magic happened over the summer break in 1930 that changed eveything for the better, since from that point on, the Roach Our Gangs were consistently good with only a handful of clunkers.
Another interesting point, Blackhawk Films, in their on-screen prologue to many of the Our Gang silents, claims that it was the longest running short subject series in film history, which is incorrect since they went from 1922 - 1944, while the Stooges went from 1934 - 1959. Now Blackhawk was in business starting in 1927, so it is very possible that those prologues were written before 1956 or so.
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