Yes. I have a deep love for Love Business. It is arguably the most
charming of all the Our Gang shorts. And I've seen so many...
This one hits upon the romantic fixations that kids develop for their
teachers. There's nothing bad about it here. In a film like this,
Miss Crabtree and Chubby Chainey can kiss without fear of a
lawsuit. June Marlow, a now mostly unremembered actress who
was both very beautiful and even more talented, brought to life the
character of the schoolteacher Miss Crabtree in many Our Gang
films (the very last was Readin' and Writin'), and her character was
loved by all who were taught by her. All her male students had
fairly innocent crushes on her. Sounds like a slice of real life, don't
it?
Well, in this one, Miss Crabtree takes a room at a boarding house
owned by the mother of one of her smitten students, the timelessly
wonderful Jackie Cooper. His little brother Wheezer knows all
about it, and how! Chubby is busy down at the local movie house,
demonstrating his courtly love-making technique to a cardboard
cut out of Greta Garbo, when he finds out where Miss Crabtree is
shacked up. A date is aranged between the two of them. That
scene is very memorable, as well as the scene before it where
Marianne (another adorable little actress) tells Miss Crabtree that
she is also in love with Chubby. Miss Crabtree says, "Oh, well
then, I'm your rival." to which Marianne replies "Well, I don't know
anything about rifles!"
The date is a sequence that is suprisingly charming. When I first
saw this movie, I was probably 6, I didn't think anything was wrong
with it. I still don't to tell you the truth. Some great lines come out
of that scene too. "Don't call me Norman. Call my Chubsy-Ubsy."
"Miss Crabtree, there's something lying heavily on my heart." "Oh,
Chubsy Ubsy, there's gonna be something heavy on your nose!"
"Miss Crabtree, I hate to see you living as a chamber maid. Marry
me, and live like a queen." He says it just like he means it, too.
There's integrity for ya.
Another scene worth mentioning is the dinner, where a soup is
serves with mothballs accidently mixed in. The faces Marianne
makes are unforgattable.
The magic and beauty of these films was that, even though these
kids fought bad guys, fires, built amazing contraptions out of
household appliances and outsmarted adults, the movies saw
them for what they were: normal little kids. Exceptionally talented
kids were the actors, but they seemed to play themselves. In the
scene where Chubby blushes in front of Miss Crabtree (who can
blame him?). They feel pain, jealousy, oppression, anger, love
and excitement, and it rings true when you see it in their eyes and
heare them speek it with such integrity as one rarely hears. The
kids are indeed nothing but real kids, and that's a beautiful thing.
