Shivering Spooks

Overall, I'd say this is a pretty good silent Our Gang film.

Essentially, the gang stumbles into the lair of a crooked spiritualist aptly named Professor Fleece, who with his partners in crime try to scare the gang away. That sums up the plot without giving away the ending, but in spite of the slim storyline, a lot happens within these 20 minutes! The opening scene is rather shocking, as it seems that Farina and Scooter are running away form a man shooting point blank at them, but our horror quickly turns to relief and (depending on how sensitive you are) laugher when the camera reveals that we are not watching what we think.

Yes, there are a few unsettling scenes, such as the gang forcing Farina to enter a tunnel out of a cave by saying, "If you get killed, we know it ain't safe." (With friends like these...). However, the bit with the Klan-like ghost scaring Farina, who if you don't know by now was the series' Black star of the 20s, is neutralized by the fact that the phony ghost scares ALL of the children in the film. But the gag involving Farina turning white at the site of the ghost and the exchange with Mary Kornman about seeing "Colored ghosts" in the dark are relatively mild in comparison to some of the far cruder gags involving modern Black comedy (Chapelle's Show and Def Comedy Jam, anyone?) . The humor of the latter scene is clearly based on the innocence of children as opposed to mean-spiritedness (as was the case in some later Gang films as "Spook Spoofing" and the horribly cruel and unfunny "Glorious Fourth").

Yes, Allen "Farina" Hoskins has defended his work with the Gang/Rascals, but how much sensitivity and political correctness could one expect considering he was a small child when these films were made? As in many films of this period, he steals the show years before his tenth birthday! So yeah, the film shows its age and PC types will call their heart surgeons over some of the humor. But much of the film is undeniably amusing and as is the case with the Our Gang Rascals, the pros outweigh the cons.