A Quiet Street

An early idyll -- which means, for the Little Rascals, not much happens in the way of a plot. It is little but kids doing kid's stuff, yanking out loose teeth by tying one end around the tooth, the other end around a dog, rolling around in a barrel. That sort of thing.

For me, these are the best Our Gang pieces, in which the problem is to fill up the day as interestingly as possible. The series lost that quality after director Bob McGowan left, to be replaced by stars like Spanky and Alfalfa, who always sang. What was the purpose of that? Haha, they're only kids, they don't know how bad they are?

Yes, but think back to when you were a youngster. During the endless afternoons of the late summer -- I definitely recall one August day in 1958 I discovered monarch butterflies on the marigolds. That afternoon lasted longer than the Carter Administration and was certainly more interesting.

That's the sort of day these episodes recall: true in reality, if not in fact. McGowan's Our Gang shorts always showed clearly that he remembered all this, and we enjoyed the world with the Rascals. We did not stand off to a side and laugh at them for their ineptitude. We laughed with them as their dog chased the burglar up the same steps that Laurel & Hardy would later move a player piano. But that was after we all grew up.

I won't comment on the other reviewer who likes the quality of the children's voices in this movie. He has a tendency to recycle his reviews, but it is, I suppose, possible, that these kids were so much a part of his youth that he knows their voices. Such is the power of someone who remembers his childhood: Bob McGowan and I are two. Are you another?