Come Back, Miss Pipps

COME BACK MISS PIPPS is a unique Our Gang entry in that adult actors dominate the story rather than the kids. Sara Haden stars as the beloved schoolteacher Miss Pipps whose "softness" with her students is despised by mean old school board head Mr. Pratt (Charles Wilson) who has her fired. The children are outraged and decide to perform a play showing how unfair Miss Pipps' dismissal was and what a nasty character old Mr. Pratt is.

This film is really Haden and Wilson's show and they are terrific. Sara Haden, best known for playing "Aunt Milly" in the Andy Hardy film series, charms as the gentle youngish spinster whose whole life is her students. Charles Wilson was in almost 200 films from 1920-1941, though usually in small and often unbilled roles. He is perhaps best known for playing another evil man named Pratt as the crooked lawyer in W. C. Fields' TILLIE AND GUS (1933). This was sadly Mr. Wilson's final film; he died about three weeks before this film was released in October 1941. His role is a fitting swan song to his career and his stock persona as a crabby and sinister old man, his character fleshed here out to add a touch of vulnerability and pathos. There's an extra touch of melancholy here in knowing 1941 audiences watching this film obviously had know idea that this unheralded but familiar player had passed away just days before the film's release.

This M-G-M short, Come Back, Miss Pipps, is the one hundred ninety-ninth entry in the "Our Gang" series and the one hundred eleventh talkie. Notice I didn't put the word "comedy" between the studio name and "short". That's because there didn't seem much attempt at humor this time. Anyway, class ends early since it's Mickey's birthday and the title character decides to spend the rest of the day celebrating it with his classmates. But school board chairman Mr. Pratt thinks she's wasting her time and recommends to the rest of the members she be fired which is granted. The gang won't tolerate it so they stage a play in front of the board, with the help of the kindly janitor who keeps Miss Pipps from attending, showing how mean Mr. Pratt really is. Now while I said there wasn't much attempt at humor, that doesn't mean this wasn't entertaining. In fact, the adults-Sara Haden as the title character, Christen Rub as the janitor, and Clarence Wilson as Mr. Pratt are fine in their typecast roles since Ms. Haden played the kindly aunt in the Andy Hardy series, Mr. Rub was the voice of Geppetto in Walt Disney's Pinocchio, and Mr. Wilson was previously in OG as the mean man in Shrimps for a Day, Little Sinner, and Clown Princes. Actually, I have to point out the irony that I previously saw Ms. Haden as the mean truant officer in Shirley Temple's Captain January which also featured then-OG member Jerry Tucker as her likewise nephew! Anyway, I highly liked Come Back, Miss Pipps especially the wonderful surprise ending concerning Mr. Pratt. So that's a recommendation. P.S. This was Clarence Wilson's final film appearance as he died on October 5, 1941, before the short's release. Oh, and one of the players was Billy Bletcher as Froggy's father. He previously was in OG shorts The First Round-Up as Wally Albright's father, Teacher's Beau, and Divot Diggers. And the little girl who tells her father about mean Mr. Pratt is Giovanna Gubitosi-or Jean Blake, Robert Blake's sister.