Mickey Rooney is a tiny menace in Mickey's Brown Derby

If you have about twenty minutes and want to see a very young Mickey Rooney acting like he is a 45-year-old plumber, this is for you. It is a weird little silent short that feels more like a playground fight than a movie.

People who love silent comedy will probably find it charming. If you hate watching kids scream in silent text-cards, you should probably skip it and watch The Smile Wins instead.

The whole thing is based on those old Toonerville Folks comics. Rooney plays Mickey McGuire, and he spends most of the time looking like he wants to punch the camera.

He wears this gigantic brown derby hat. It is so big it looks like it might swallow his whole head if he trips.

The plot is basically just a race. The kids have these 'cars' that look like they were pulled out of a literal dumpster five minutes before filming.

I dont think half of these kids were actually acting. They mostly just look dirty and confused about why they are being told to run around in the sun.

The Scrappiness Factor

There is a real messiness to this that you dont see in modern movies. The background is just dusty vacant lots and rickety fences that look like they would give you a splinter just by looking at them.

It is much more frantic than something like Forgotten Sweeties. While that one feels a bit more put together, this one feels like the director just let a bunch of kids loose and hoped nobody got hurt.

One kid in the background spends a whole scene just trying to keep his pants up. It is hilarious but I am pretty sure it was not supposed to be the focus of the shot.

The race itself is pure chaos. The cars are falling apart and the editing is so jumpy that sometimes you aren't sure who is winning or even what direction they are going.

Mickey Rooney has this energy that is honestly kind of exhausting to watch. He is always moving, always gesturing, always trying to be the boss of everyone else in the frame.

• The dog in the race looks like it wants to be literally anywhere else.
• The 'villain' kid has a very impressive sneer for someone who is probably eight.
• There is a lot of dirt. Just, so much dirt on everyone's faces.

I noticed that the intertitles—the text on screen—try way too hard to sound like 'kid talk.' It comes off a bit strange when you read it now, like a robot trying to pretend it grew up in a 1920s alleyway.

The ending is very abrupt. They finish the race and then the movie just sort of... stops. No real big lesson or anything, just a 'well, that happened' kind of vibe.

It is not a masterpiece of cinema. It is barely a coherent story if I am being honest.

But it has this weird, raw energy that is hard to find now. It is just kids being loud and fast and wearing clothes that are four sizes too big.

I enjoyed it more than A Wild Goose Chase because at least the stakes felt real to the kids. Even if the stakes were just a trophy made of tin cans or whatever.

If you like seeing the very start of a massive Hollywood career, it is worth a look. Otherwise, it is just a funny relic of a time when we thought putting kids in danger for a laugh was a great afternoon.

The way Mickey tilts his hat is probably the most professional thing in the whole movie. Everything else is just dust and shoving.