A different way of telling a story

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

This Hal Roach comedy short, Mush and Milk, is the one hundred twenty-third in the "Our Gang/Little Rsacals" series and the thirty-fifth talkie. The gang are at an orphanage and they don't like it what with the mean headmistress and the regular servings of the title food. But the old man who teaches them loves them and promises as soon as his pension arrives, he'll get them all out of there. I'll stop there and just say this was another hilarious short in the series with Stymie and Dickie trying to make some milk and Spanky doing some funny dialogue with James Finlayson on the other line on the phone. The amusement park scenes may have been taken from Fish Hooky a few shorts back. Tommy does a nice rendition of "Just Friends". So on that note, I highly recommend Mush and Milk. P.S. This marked the last series appearance of Dorothy DeBorba, Dickie Moore who went back to features, and Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins. Wheezer went back to private life after leaving. Unfortunately, he died during an air cadet training exercise on May 17, 1945 before he was to graduate that, or maybe the following week. He was 20. His brother, Dickie who was in Forgotten Babies, died on July 2, 1978.

This is a pretty poor Our Gang film--plus it marks the last appearances by Wheezer and Dickie Moore. Wheezer's career pretty much disappeared after this, though Dickie went on to one of the more popular child actors of the mid-1930s. So why do I say this one is poor? Well, aside from the ending, it just isn't very funny and the setup is pretty bad as well.The film begins in a boarding school. However, it's run by an ugly old hag who beats and starves the kids!! It's all WAY overdone--especially giving the nasty old lady a giant whip! Talk about lacking subtlety. There is one bright spot in the place--an old retired captain who loves the kids and vows to one day take them away from this rat hole. What follows is a lengthy school scene where the Captain teaches the kids absolutely nothing of value and it's littered with really, really lame jokes. At the end, however, the old guy strikes it rich and treats all the kids to a wonderful meal...or so he thinks.Overall, pretty bad and worth skipping unless you are a die-hard fan.

Mush and Milk was one of numerous school-oriented Our Gand comedies. This particular episode had, as its setting, Bleak Hill Boarding School, which bore sign saying it offered LOWEST RATES and "MOTHER'S CARE(?)" I wonder if the Dickens novel Bleak House furnished inspiration. The "MOTHER's CARE(?) logo proved what a dump this boarding school was, with Louise Emmons portraying the disagreeable old crone who headed the school, a dasmal dame if ever there were one. "Dasmal dame" is a woman who plays DOMINEERING MOTHER. Cap was sharp contrast; he was kind and understanding; Gus Leonard was just the actor for that sort of role. (He did stellar job later in "Lucky Corner" as Scotty Becket's grandpa.) Gus did not mind the silly answers that the kids gave in class, and surely appreciated Spanky's getting up to answer the phone, when James Finlayson, as Mr. Brown of First National Bank, told Cap that his back pension had arrived, something that he had long waited for (but which the crone who ran the school SCORNED). Cap's receiving this wonderful news, and his treating the kids to day at amusement park, calls to mind recent developments in MY life, to wit, improvement in living standard after settlement of Mom's estate, in form of larger apartment, new car, etc. Surely, Mush and Milk was heartwarming, especially with Cap's confidence that things would turn out all right, something that the Little Rascals came to believe.

Okay, we all know how good most of the Our Gang comedies are, and this this is certainly one of the best. That said, I think it's fascinating how these shorts also serve as historical documents. For example, the actress who plays Cap's wife, Louise Emmons, was born in 1852. The president at the time was Millard Fillmore! This is nine full years before Abe Lincoln was elected! He was probably still splitting logs in 1852. Just imagine sitting with Louise during lunch at the studio commissary and picking her brains.