Run Time: 20 minutes. Studio: Hal Roach Studios. Director: Robert McGowan. Writers: Hal Roach, H.M. Walker. Main Cast: Mickey Daniels, Joe Cobb, Allen "Farina" Hopkins, Jackie Condon, Mary Korman, Eugene Jackson. Producer: Hal Roach.
So it's February and that means it is the month of romance. And as such what film could be more romantic than a Our Gang comedy short. For this reason we are going to discuss a delightful silent Our Gang short called The Love Bug.
Farina is meeting with his girlfriend (Dorothy Morrison). However she thinks his hair is too much of a mess. Joe is similarly seeing a girl (Peggy Ahern) he likes. However the girl thinks he is to fat. Mickey is ready to propose to Mary, but his Mary hates his freckles. They all go to the friendly neighborhood grandma (Florence Lee) for advice. Meanwhile Pineapple (the odd name given to Eugene Jackson in this film) is working at a local beauty salon. Pineapple suggests the gang use the beauty salon to improve their appearance and impress their girlfriends. Finding no one around the gang decides to use the facilities themselves with disastrous results.
This is a very funny short. While there is some good humor with the boys and their girlfriends, the real fun is takes place when the gang is in the beauty salon. At this point the film becomes very fast paced and energetic slapstick humor at its finest. The laughs keep coming and don't stop until the picture is over. While one could argue that there may be better Our Gang silent shorts, that does not stop this film from being a pure delight. Also the romance plot may have no conclusion, but that is not the point. This film only aims to make the audience laugh and it successeds perfectly at this.
The Love Bug introduced the idea of the Our Gang kids having a friendly neighborhood grandma. This idea would reappear in such talkie shorts as Helping Grandma and Fly My Kite. The grandmother in The Love Bug was played by Florence Lee. She would reprise this role in the next Our Gang short Ask Grandma, where she would play a bigger part. Lee's most famous movie role would also be as a grandma in a silent comedy, as she would play the blind girl's grandma in Charlie Chaplin's City Lights.
Back in the 1920's theater owners often times would write to movie magazines about what they and their audiences thought about various films. The following is what some theater owners wrote about The Love Bug for the Exhibitors Herald.
"Love Bug, The, Our Gang, 2. - These Pathe Gang comedies please the crowd, but do not bring in an extra nickel if there is a big feature at another theatre they like better than yours. Have counted hundreds who go out at the end of the feature who came in at the middle or the end of the comedy and do not wait to see it over. (Temple, Bellaire, O.) The entire gang gets bit by the bug, which inoculates most of us and there are plenty of laughs for everyone. (Trags, Neillsville, Wis.) As usual with Our Gang comedies, good and pleased audience. (Mission, Wichita Falls, Tex.)"
A review of this in Motion Picture World stated
"The thoughts of Farina , Mickey, Joe and Jack lightly turn to love as spring comes. The Gang overhear certain petite ladies discussing their physical shortcomings and borrowing five dollars, hie [I know that is not a real word, but it is what was written in the review so I kept it in] them to them to a beauty parlor to overcome these same defects. But the proprietor has had a run-in with his staff and fired them, so during his absence the gang takes over the beauty parlor and begins experimenting with the various bits of apparatus and the cosmetics. The results are disastrous to both the experimenters and their surroundings. The proprietor and a policemen intervene and the last seen of the gang is a rapid departure. This "Our Gang" comedy is fully up to the high standards of those which have proceeded it and possibly above the average. We don't see how anybody could fail to
enjoy it"
Below is a really strange article in the Exhibitor's Trade Review that talks about this film.
-Michael J. Ruhland
Resources UsedThe Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang by Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann
http://mediahistoryproject.org/
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