NitrateVille.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SPANKY, ALFALFA, BUCKWHEAT, DARLA, PETE THE PUP
AND ALL THE FAVORITES FROM “OUR GANG” ARE BACK

THE LITTLE RASCALS:
THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

The Cultural Icons Star in 80 Remastered, Restored, and Uncut Shorts
in an Eight-Disc Anthology in Order of Chronological Release

Bonus Features Include Three Silent Shorts, Three Featurettes, Filmed Introductions and a 12-Page Collectible Photo Booklet

AVAILABLE ON DVD OCTOBER 28


SANTA MONICA, CALIF. (July 28, 2008) – Generations have grown up with them and now Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Darla, Froggy, Pete the Pup and the rest of the gang return in their best-loved comedies when Genius Products and RHI Entertainment debuts The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection on DVD October 28. One of the most famous and successful series in cinema history, the collection represents all 80 shorts in chronological release date order created under the supervision of legendary film producer Hal Roach from the dawn of the talkies (1929) until the series was sold to MGM in 1938, an era generally conceded to be the series “golden age.” Each short has been magnificently remastered from the original camera negatives, restored using DVNR technology and available uncut for the first time in years.

The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection also features a wealth of bonus materials including introductions and commentaries by various film historians and authors; interviews with former “Little Rascals” members, the five-part featurette Catching Up With “The Rascals”; the featurette The Story of Hal Roach and “Our Gang;” the featurette “The Rascals” and Racial Issues, a study of racism as part of the Rascals; and three original silent shorts from the Hal Roach “Our Gang” library: Dog Heaven (1927), Spook-Spoofing (1928) and Barnum & Ringling, Inc. (1928). Also included with the set is a collectible photo booklet containing classic images from the series, original movie posters, fun facts, and lobby cards. The preeminent collection is a must-have for all true fans and will be available for $89.95 SRP.

Producer Hal Roach (who also launched Harold Lloyd and Laurel & Hardy into immortality) introduced “The Little Rascals” in 1922. The short films featured ordinary, lower class kids acting like real children, rather than stilted actors and the series immediately gained popularity with film-going audiences. Although originally dubbed “Hal Roach’s Rascals,” the name “Our Gang” caught on in popularity after one of the early short’s titles and became the official name shortly afterward. The series also broke new ground by including boys, girls, whites and blacks interacting as equals.

In 1938, Roach sold the series outright to MGM, stepping away from any active participation in his creation. The studio continued to make “Our Gang” comedies, but without Roach, the series deteriorated in quality and popularity and MGM discontinued production in 1944. In the late ‘40s, Roach exorcized his option to buy back the rights to the 1927–1938 “Our Gang” shorts, repackaged them (without the “Our Gang” name and MGM logo, to which the studio still owned the rights) and launched “The Little Rascals” on television in 1955, where they became, along with “The Three Stooges,” staples of after-school TV, enchanting whole new generations of children for years to come.

In addition to the Academy Award® winning Bored of Education (Best Short Subject/One-Reel, 1937) and Pups Is Pups (1930) which was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2004, The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection includes the shorts Small Talk, Railroadin’, Boxing Gloves, Lazy Days, Bouncing Babies, Moan & Groan, Inc., Shivering Shakespeare (all 1929); The First Seven Years, When the Wind Blows, Bear Shooters, A Tough Winter, Teacher’s Pet, School’s Out (all 1930); Helping Grandma, Love Business, Little Daddy, Bargain Day, Fly My Kite, Big Ears, Shiver My Timbers, Dogs Is Dogs, Readin’ and Writin’ (all 1931); Free Eats, Spanky, Choo-Choo!, The Pooch, Hook and Ladder, Free Wheeling, Birthday Blues, A Lad an’ a Lamp (all 1932); Fish Hooky, Forgotten Babies, The Kid From Borneo, Mush and Milk, Bedtime Worries, Wild Poses (all 1933); Hi’-Neighbor, For Pete’s Sake, The First Round-Up, Honky-Donkey, Mike Fright, Washee Ironee, Mama’s Little Pirate, Shrimps for a Day (all 1934); Anniversary Trouble, Beginner’s Luck, Teacher’s Beau, Sprucin’ Up, The Lucky Corner, Little Papa, Little Sinner, Our Gang Follies of 1936 (all 1935); Divot Diggers, The Pinch Singer, Second Childhood; Arbor Day; Two Too Young; Pay As You Exit, Spooky Hooky (all 1936); Reunion in Rhythm, Glove Taps, Hearts Are Thumps, Three Smart Boys, Rushin’ Ballet; Roamin’ Holiday; Night ‘N’ Gales; Fishy Tales; Framing Youth; The Pigskin Palooka; Mail and Female; Our Gang Follies of 1938 (all 1937); Canned Fishing, Bear Facts, Three Men in a Tub, Came the Brawn; Feed ‘Em and Weep, The Awful Tooth, and Hide and Shriek (all 1938).

Special Features:
Commentary from Film Historians and Authors
Interviews with former “Little Rascals” members
Film Introductions
Three Original Hal Roach “Our Gang” Silent Shorts
Dog Heaven (1927)
Spook-Spoofing (1928)
Barnum & Ringling, Inc. (1928)
Featurette: The Story of Hal Roach and Our Gang
Featurette: “The Rascals” and Racial Issues
5-Part Featurette: Catching Up With “The Rascals”
12 page collectible photo booklet with trivia, images, and collectible lobby cards



BASICS
Price: $89.95 SRP
Street Date: October 28, 2008
Pre-order Date: September 16, 2008
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Languages: English
Running time: 1332 Minutes
Catalog Number: 81205
UPC: 7-96019-81205-4

Some of the titles on this set are apparently derived from 16mm Blackhawk prints with altered opening titles; another one the original titles but with Leo the Lion's profile blotted out; see this discussion. Not that this detail should stop anyone from buying it; I'm only giving a heads up!

-Harold

This is bad. I'm not happy about this at all. Even the laserdisc set had restored titles. I've pre-ordered and will probably just keep it and grumble for the next few months. At least I've got the Cabin Fever DVD set.

None of this stuff captioned, apparently. Just like the Cabin Fever set.

They won't be getting my money for that reason.


Jim

Too bad I saw this thread too late. Mine will be going back to Amazon.

The Greenbriar Picture Shows blog has a great article on Our Gang, including this disappointing DVD set at http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot. ... oking.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/movie ... 1dvds.html

It’s Spanky and Gang: Hold on to Your Beanies
Genius Products
From left, Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Darla and Spanky.

By DAVE KEHR
Published: November 10, 2008
W. C. Fields is said to have been the source of the show business maxim “Never work with children or animals.” “The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection,” a boxed set of eight DVDs from Genius Entertainment, offers approximately 20 hours’ worth of reasons Fields was right: nobody could compete.

Some 220 shorts were produced between 1922 and 1944 starring the “Our Gang” kids and their assorted animal companions. This set consists of the 80 sound films produced by Hal Roach and released to television in the 1950s as “The Little Rascals” — a name change made necessary because Roach had sold the “Our Gang” trademark to MGM in 1938. (MGM continued to produce “Our Gang” shorts, with diminishing results, until 1944.) For the generation that grew up with them, these 80 shorts are the essence of the series, and watching them is a Proustian experience, yielding wave after wave of memories.

But many of the “Our Gang” comedies are remarkable movies in their own right. Roach (1892-1992) was a pioneering independent producer of short comedies who also started the careers of Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chase and the team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. According to Leonard Maltin and Richard Bann’s book, “The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang” (Three Rivers Press, 1992), Roach conceived the series while watching a group of children argue over bits of wood they’d taken from a lumberyard near his studio in Culver City, Calif.

Real kids, Roach believed, would be a richer source of comedy than the painted and pampered stage children usually seen in the movies, and drawing on recommendations from friends and studio employees, he put together a first cast of mostly nonprofessionals. After a couple of false starts, he also found a director, Robert F. McGowan, who could capture the natural behavior Roach had in mind.

McGowan would go on to direct most of the “Our Gang” films until he left Roach in 1933, reportedly exhausted by the stress of dealing with the dozens of child actors who passed through his care. But McGowan clearly had a profound rapport with children. He didn’t work from scripts, but instead guided the kids through structured improvisations, coaching them constantly as the cameras rolled (a technique no longer available when sound came in).

With their loose, loopy rhythms and start-and-stop pacing, the early-to-middle-period “Our Gang” films seem to resist the conventional constraints of storytelling. They shake off narrative in favor of a documentary-like texture — here are the real streets and storefronts, brand-new bungalows and refuse-strewn empty lots, of a still semi-rural Culver City — combined with strange, surrealist gags and bursts of anarchic, slapstick violence.

Luis Buñuel might have approved of a film like “Lazy Days” (1929), a pastoral reverie that consists largely of Allen Hoskins, known as Farina, one of the many African-American child actors featured in the series, dozing in an empty lot on a hot summer day. Bothered by an obviously unrehearsed bee that has landed on his nose, he asks his sister to swat it with a handy 2-by-4, with startlingly grotesque consequences.

The early sound shorts carry over many of the children from the silent films — husky Joe Cobb, the blond vamp Jean Darling, the eternally nonplussed Mary Ann Jackson — while gradually introducing new faces like Jackie Cooper and Dick Moore, who would both soon graduate to studio features. The cast most familiar from the television package coalesces around 1934: George McFarland (Spanky), Matthew Beard (Stymie), Carl Switzer (Alfalfa), Billie Thomas (Buckwheat), Darla Hood.

But it’s also around this time that the films become more professional and less appealing. McGowan was succeeded by two directors, Gus Meins and Gordon Douglas, who were far more technically adept than he was. (Douglas would go on to direct some of the toughest films noirs of the 1950s: “Between Midnight and Dawn,” “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye”). But the location settings gradually shift to studio work; the situations become more structured; and the youngsters seem less spontaneous.

In the earlier films the Gang had no set social identity: they could be farm kids in one film, stuck in an orphanage in another, living in a Dickensian slum in a third (as in “Pups Is Pups,” McGowan’s masterpiece of 1930). As the decade wore on, however, they became more and more snugly middle class — a tendency that the MGM-produced films (not included here) reinforced to a fatal degree. When the series ended in 1944, little of McGowan’s spirit was left.

The jacket of the Genius set promises “fully remastered, restored and uncut” versions of the films, which is a slight exaggeration. With one small exception, the films are presented as they were originally released, with the racial stereotyping intact. And while the majority of the shorts do look as if they had been transferred from original negatives, at least a dozen, though, are taken from 16-millimeter prints issued to the home market, and they show obvious flaws. This may not be the ideal “Our Gang” collection, but it’s perfectly “otay.” (Genius Entertainment, $89.95, not rated)

I own the original Cabin Fever DVD sets and older Republic and even Good times VHS releases. I know Amazon recently had their lightning deal sale for $29.99 for this set but for some reason (having not watched by old Cabin Fever DVD's), I was under the impression I had all 80 shorts.

So, now I'm planning to buy this set but notice so much Our Gang/Little Rascals sets online. I am familiar with the Our Gang WB Archive set for the post-1938 shorts but what I'm trying to figure out...how many shorts were released on DVD?

I see there is a Hal Roach Silents releases, this Genius has a few and then I think these knockoffs have plenty.

So, I suppose this big question is...if I was to buy the Genius, was to buy the Hal Roach Silents and then buy the Warner Archive...would I have a complete Our Gang set?

And for those other "complete collections" on Amazon and eBay, I'm guessing those are PD sets (but noticed they have 88 shorts where the Genius has 80) and not sure if they were made in another country...

Just a side note, interesting mention http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/t ... oct-28/120 in regards to a Our Gang silent DVD release.

As far as I know, there were only six Cabin Fever DVDs issued, each containing two "volumes" of the Our Gang shorts.

In an ideal world, Volumes 13-21 (issued on VHS and laserdisc) would have been issued on a second set, which would have saved us from having to buy the Genius set. But it didn't happen.

So you still need the Genius set (flaws and all), the German set of Roach silents (if you can play Region 2 PAL) and the Warner Archive DVD-R set of the later shorts.

... and, of course, presuming SOMEONE puts out the Pathé shorts before we all turn to dust, you'll need that too. .

kndy wrote:And for those other "complete collections" on Amazon and eBay, I'm guessing those are PD sets (but noticed they have 88 shorts where the Genius has 80) and not sure if they were made in another country...

I'm guessing those are bootlegs made off the Cabin Fever laserdiscs. If I remember right, the LDs had all the Roach shorts plus a handful of the silents. That's probably the addtional 8 shorts.

As far as I know, the only OUR GANG in Public Domain are SCHOOL'S OUT, BEAR SHOOTERS and FOLLIES OF 1938. Any others?

Marr&Colton wrote:As far as I know, the only OUR GANG in Public Domain are SCHOOL'S OUT, BEAR SHOOTERS and FOLLIES OF 1938. Any others?

One of the one-reelers is PD, Waldo's Last Stand. It's one of the MGM produced films. Also, many of the silents have lapsed.

Jim Reid wrote:

Marr&Colton wrote:As far as I know, the only OUR GANG in Public Domain are SCHOOL'S OUT, BEAR SHOOTERS and FOLLIES OF 1938. Any others?

One of the one-reelers is PD, Waldo's Last Stand. It's one of the MGM produced films. Also, many of the silents have lapsed.

It is the Pathé silent Our Gangs that have mostly lapsed. As far as I know, the silent MGMs are still under copyright.

Doug Sulpy wrote:As far as I know, there were only six Cabin Fever DVDs issued, each containing two "volumes" of the Our Gang shorts.

In an ideal world, Volumes 13-21 (issued on VHS and laserdisc) would have been issued on a second set, which would have saved us from having to buy the Genius set. But it didn't happen.

So you still need the Genius set (flaws and all), the German set of Roach silents (if you can play Region 2 PAL) and the Warner Archive DVD-R set of the later shorts.

... and, of course, presuming SOMEONE puts out the Pathé shorts before we all turn to dust, you'll need that too. .

Greetings Doug,

Was this the German set you were talking about?

I think you will find that this series of DVDs from Germany has an Italian connection, it seems Nero was involved because a good amount of fiddling has gone on. I have one of these and there are trailers for other discs in the series. I am talking soundtrack additions. Typical German release. I sold Lps of older material in my shop and they added a small group onto the tracks to make them, uh, stereo!!!! But all is not bad, though.

I have the one pictured which is 2-discs with 7 shorts a disc. Of course the astute reader will note that the cover picture does not belong to this 2-disc set. Not a bad picture, though. The next set is 3-discs which I don't have.

Yes, that's the German DVD I was talking about.

Mostly excellent quality and, after all, those silent shorts aren't anywhere else, so it's not like there's another option.

I have the 3 DVD follow-up (1930-1934) as well, but was less impressed. The picture quality is fine, but I don't like that they replaced the original titles with new, German ones.

Doug (or anyone) can you tell me if the German set has the English intertitles intact on these shorts?

Gaucho wrote:Doug (or anyone) can you tell me if the German set has the English intertitles intact on these shorts?

Yes, the titles cards are in English, and the German translation titles are superimposed at the bottom of the title cards. Those are not removable, but they really aren't intrusive at all, imo.

I have now taken delivery of the 2nd & 3rd volume in the German Little Rascals shorts top 1938. Seems all is in good order with clean audio & title card adjustments as has been mentioned. Although they have a wraparound similar to the Columbia Blondie series for King Features TV release & the MGM trademark does not appear at the front, the MGM tm remains in the original copyright notice at the bottom of the frame. I have seen these with the tm blocked or a new one printed over the top.

The boxes are the same as Volume 1. The error in these boxes is that if they had switched the front photos around they would have appeared correctly matching the kids in the enclosed shorts. Of course, I have noted previously that Volume One has the post 1935 gang photo on the cover.

I am watching these in the German dubbed audio at present time. Teacher's Pet(a favorite) has the blonde twins opening the short as it should and the German dubbing has a girl dub the dialog and they have echoed it to sound like two girls.

It was funny that I had ordered these two volumes into the cart then left them there & later added something else & still did not submit but the price of one volume had increased considerably. The sometime later I decided to submit the order & the price had gone down again(& still is as I type).

The thought of Our Gang in German editions makes me wonder about how they were sold into Europe in the 1930s, particularly in Germany. Did they cut out Buckwheat, like the Lena Horne specialty numbers being cut out of MGM pictures in their runs in the American South?


Bob

Being of German descent, I have worked & lived in Germany(Wiesbsaden briefly at publisher Breitkopf und Haertel) I heard lots of opinions about Der Neger and they were not liked at that time. US military were there and in Frankfurt 30mins up the road on the train. However, I worked in an old house with an attic for the publishing firm on Albrecht Durer Platz. There was a bus stop outside & at the time kids were coming out from school I used to hear English language from young kids with an American lilt. I looked out & saw negroid faces out there. I asked my colleagues in the office and they told me that these were kids conceived of German women from US servicemen who were Neger and these guys had, in the main, cleared off back to America with no forwarding address. I am talking late 1970. I also observed first hand the attitudes towards the Turkischer "Gastarbieter" & it was not nice. I have met young Turkish girls here when I had a shop in a Melbourne suburb where they have their chuches & live alongside the Greeks. These girls were born in Germany and spoke German, Turkish & English. One lovely girl used to borrow German-language books in the city library a few doors from my shop to keep up the language. This was 1997-2000 when I retired.

But in the 1920s a number of USA jazz musicians took off for England & Europe such as the Sam Wooding Band & a few others. Eventually, they settled in Paris where they were always welcomed as far as I know but with the coming of Nazi rule they seemed not to be welcome anymore, by the government at least. I have a large library of German DVDs of films made from the 1920s-60s & TV shows & I am not conscious of any negoes in these films in any role. I do have a number of color German-language cowboys & indians, some with US actors but no negroes.

Someone might add to this forum about what they know but it was too late for Cabin in the Sky or Stormy Weather(both 1943) because the US film exchanges were all takeover by the government well before this time for obvious reasons. Would they have been shown had the war not been on? It is interesting to note that US films, otherwise, shown here until the exchanges were taken over realising that most of the US companies were operated by Jewish interests & prior to Goebels merging the major German film studio businesses under his control Paramount &, I believe, MGM had money in ufa. And Jazz music was not really verboten in that time.

I'm curious...for the Little Rascals film "General Spanky", is this the only DVD where we can watch it? Is it a Public Domain film? Saw it listed on classicreels.com:

kndy wrote:I'm curious...for the Little Rascals film "General Spanky", is this the only DVD where we can watch it? Is it a Public Domain film? Saw it listed on classicreels.com:

It is not PD. It's owned by Warner.

This item only stars the boys & is not Little Rascals but rather Our gang as the shot says. The item has only been on Laserdisc in disc form to date which I have. it must surely come up on WAC sometime sooner or later. The male lead is Phillips Holmes who is usually listed as Canadian but rather it was his actress Mom who was Canadian & her maiden name was Phillips & he was born in Grand Rapids/MI which is often mistaken for Judy Garland's birthplace but she was born in the Grand Rapids in Minnesota. He did not actually die in WW2 in that he & his brother, Ralph(actor, suicided in 1945 in NYC), joined the Canadian air force and Phillips died in a mid-air collision when he & fellow air force guys were being transferred to another location. I had read he had drug & alcohol problems but this does not show up in some biographical information I just read. The plane crash may make Holmes the first US actor to die as a result of WW2 no matter where it happened.

moviepas wrote: is not Little Rascals but rather Our gang as the shot says.

Our Gang and the Little Rascals are one in the same. When MGM bought the series in 1938 they got the name so the Hal Roach Our Gangs had to have a different name when they were re-released. Hence, the Little Rascals.

That's my point Jim, MGM never called them The Little Rascals but there was a reference to Little Rascals when mentioning General Spanky. A point was being cleared up. I know the history of the situation & have written about MGM in those days & been there. I also have the book an on-line friend has written & another on Hal Roach.

It is my great pity that Roach took his stuff back and took the path he did. MGM did have those negatives until that time & supplied the prints to moviehouses that they distributed, although Roach did have their own lab also. Had MGM kept this material & maybe bought outright the rights to the material & not just the name Our Gang & retained the other L&H they did give back then that debacle on the ?"forthcoming"? L&H set would not have happened, & we would be talking about something else. All conjecture today but a tragedy in film terms. Many a studio has returned negatives for one reason or another & regretted it. And stuff left at commercial labs, particularly independents at Technicolor around the world, has been junked when storage fees cease & letters remain unanswered as was their policy at Technicolor, for example.

That's true. There's a good chance we would still have Hats Off and a pristine Battle of the Century. MGM did actually retain ownership until the mid-40s on all these films, but Roach was allowed to buy them back then. Although maybe if Metro had kept the Roach library they might not have fallen on hard times and been taken over by UA in the late 70s or Turner in the 80s and we might not have TCM or those great videos from Warner. Just a thought.

On the other hand, they wouldn't have been so easily released to tv and been able to addict a bunch of kids in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Bob

UA went broke & MGM took them over & merged them, effectively getting the pre-1948 WB archive that included their shorts & cartoons which Warners tried for years to buy back and only Turner moving into bed with Warner did this finally happen. Ironically, UA got involved(took them over) with aap who had the original Fleischer Popeyes & latter day Warners got the King Features rights to those & now happily in my collection.

The MGM library was on TV here in Australia with the shorts so the L&H etc Roach material if in that library would have been struck for TV along with everything else.

I did know about the mid-1940s deal. We have discussed the Battle of the Century before in that Youngson is supposed to have had the complete version when he was compiling his series of films in NYC & left them in a storage place here & it & others deteriorated but then I was not there & it may only be inadmissable hearsay.

Actually, UA already had the pre-48 Warners library. It was aquired in the 50s and later the same people bought UA.

I don't think the MGM shorts made it to tv like the features did, but maybe if they had a shorts collection as rich as the Roach library, they would have wanted to cash in on it.