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Cult Review
Senior Film Conservator
If you have a low tolerance for kids screaming at the top of their lungs, you should probably skip this one immediately. But if you find the chaos of 1930s child acting sort of charming, it is definitely worth twenty minutes of your time.
It is basically for people who like Our Gang but wish it was a little more aggressive. People who want a polished story with high stakes will absolutely hate it.
Mickey Rooney is here, but he is still going by Mickey McGuire. He has this bowl cut that looks like it was done with a pair of rusty garden shears.
He is the leader of the gang, obviously. The whole plot is just the kids playing Robin Hood in a vacant lot that looks like it hasn't seen a drop of water in years.
The "forest" is just some dead branches stuck in the dirt. It is wonderfully low-budget in a way that feels real, like something you and your friends would have built in the woods.
There is this one scene where they are all trying to talk at once. It’s just a wall of high-pitched noise.
I think the script was more of a suggestion than a rule. You can tell half the kids are just looking off-camera waiting for someone to tell them where to stand.
Jimmy Robinson is in this too, playing Hambone. The racial stuff is... well, it's 1930, so it’s exactly what you expect, which is to say it’s pretty uncomfortable to watch now.
But the energy between the kids is genuine. They seem like they actually spend all day hitting each other with sticks.
Speaking of sticks, the sword fights are great. They aren't choreographed at all; they are just swinging pieces of wood with zero regard for safety.
One kid almost gets poked in the eye and he doesn't even blink. He just keeps yelling his line about the Sheriff of Nottingham.
The movie is based on the Toonerville Folks comics by Fontaine Fox. You can see that cartoonish DNA in the way everyone moves.
Billy Barty shows up as well! He is so tiny here.
Every time Barty is on screen, he steals the whole thing. He has this weirdly intense focus that the other kids lack.
There is a moment where a goat gets involved. I am 90% sure the goat was not supposed to be in that shot.
The camera just kind of lingers on the goat while Mickey tries to stay in character. It is the best part of the movie.
If you’ve seen Henpecked, you know the vibe of these early sound shorts. They are clunky and the sound recording is pretty rough.
Sometimes the dialogue just cuts out or gets muffled by the wind. It adds to that feeling of being a found artifact from a weird time in history.
I watched The Flower Girl recently and it felt much more staged than this. This feels like someone just let a bunch of caffeinated children loose in a junkyard.
There is no real ending, really. It just kind of stops when they run out of film or the kids got tired.
Mickey Rooney already has that "star" energy, even if he is being a total brat. You can see why he became a massive deal later on.
He hits his marks and yells louder than anyone else. That was basically 80% of his career for a while.
The sets are so flimsy you can see them shaking when a kid runs past. It’s glorious.
I love how nobody cares about the background. There are modern (for 1930) houses clearly visible behind their "medieval castle."
It reminds me of the low-stakes feeling in Mitt the Prince. Just people making things because they could.
The costume for Little John is just a pair of pants that are three sizes too big. They keep slipping down while he's trying to act serious.
It is not a masterpiece. It isn't even "good" by normal standards.
But it is alive. Most movies today feel like they’ve been scrubbed clean by a thousand executives.
This feels like dirt and noise and 1930.
IMDb 6.7
1915
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