The MGM Our Gangs (1938-1944) are not nearly as good as the Hal Roach talkie Our Gangs (1929-1938). In fact, Leonard Maltin calls the MGM shorts “unbearable” and nails the reason:
The MGM crew eventually turned the Our Gang comedies into ten-minute morality plays, stressing mother love, patriotism, pedestrian safety, and other American virtues in such a maudlin way that the studio’s Andy Hardy films seem anarchistic by comparison.
But at a quite bearable 67 cents per short, the entire MGM run on 5 DVD’s (total: $34.95) might just be worth considering.
The shorts will shortly be released through the WB Archive direct-sales program. The WB Archive exists to do precisely this sort of thing – make films with limited commercial potential available on DVD.
How limited is that potential? How many of the 305+ million Americans have been clamoring for the MGM Our Gangs?
Let’s take that a step further. How many want their very own copy of, for example, The Boob? Consider this thirty second clip from that Warner Archive title:
Now, in spite of that wildly entertaining clip, I’d still like to see this movie, a late silent (1926) about prohibition directed by Wild Bill Wellman.
Wellman’s own comments about the film don’t serve to make it much more tempting:
I had directed, or rather I misdirected, one picture at the Goldwyn Studios, the title of which escapes me, thank God. Oh, no, I just thought of it: The Boob. In it were George K. Arthur, Tony D’Algy, Charlie Murray, and a young star by the name of Lucille le Sueur, later to be known as Joan Crawford. The [studio] brass took one look at my first directional blooper and bounced me right out of the studio, and fate demoted me to an assistant director once again.- A Short Time For Insanity, the autobiography of William Wellman
So, historically speaking, the film is important, in that it nearly destroyed Wellman’s career. Other facts of note: The Boob was considered a “lost film” for many years. Though the Archive doesn’t mention it, IMdB does: this is the movie that’s playing in the town where Buster Keaton encounters a hurricane in Steamboat Bill Jr., and the speakeasy set seen in The Boob was actually created for the silent 1925 Ben-Hur and was “re-dressed.”
That’s enough for me. I’m inviting friends over to see 1-2-3 Go! (1941), the MGM Our Gang about the formation of a safety society, and The Boob, the William Wellman movie that The Baltimore Sun called, upon its 1926 release, “… a piece of junk.”
Only because it was a family newspaper.
Our Gang (1938-1942) at the WB Archive.
