When Mary Pickford reached her late twenties and got tired of playing cute little girls, blonde Mary Kornman replaced her as America's favorite little Mary. The difference was that Kornman was actually the correct age. She appeared in 41 "Our Gang" shorts (they were silents then), when she got too old for that role she was replaced by her sister Mildred. You needed a scorecard to keep track of those "Our Gang" kids.
Several years later she returned to the Hal Roach lot to team up with Mickey Daniels (another too old member of the Gang) and Grady Sutton for the "Boy Friends" series. "Doctor's Orders" is the first of the series, which in 1930 was still being played much like a silent picture. Most of the humor is visual which hurts Sutton the most because his voice and delivery were his biggest asset.
The short has David Sharpe and Mickey staging a car wreck so the supposedly injured Grady can convalesce in Mary's house, and cozy up to her cousin (played by Dorothy Granger). The girls are immediately wise to the deception but go along with it anyway. Leaving Mary's father (Edgar Kennedy) to get to the bottom of things. The longest running gag has David trying to impersonate both a doctor and a nurse with a lot of quick costume changes.
Kornman had progressed from super cute to beautiful and sexy by this time (she also looks great with John Wayne in "Desert Trail") and is the main reason to watch "Doctor's Orders". This style of comedy seems very strained today. It does provide an interesting look at southern California over 75 years ago, as it appears to have been shot on location in a local residential area. Note the super wide sidewalks in the neighborhood.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
